which were those of real interest to the Germans, had at once been settled, and that it was only when the points of English interest were brought forward that difficulties arose. The hopes based upon the death of Nicholas proved equally ill-grounded. The new Czar, Alexander, declared at once that he would maintain the policy of his predecessors, and it was in fact with his knowledge and co-operation that the terms of the Allies at the Conference had been rejected. Lord John Russell. Though at present the Vienna negotiations produced no effect upon the war, they caused considerable difficulty to the Government in Resignation of England. After their failure Lord John Russell, who had acted as our Plenipotentiary, spoke in strong language of the necessity of continuing the war; but it came to light, through a circular of the Russian Chancellor, that he had during his residence at Vienna declared his approval of the Austrian terms. He was accused loudly therefore by the Opposition of attempting to keep up a war which he in fact believed might have been brought to an honourable conclusion. He defended himself on the ground that he was acting under instructions, and was but the mouthpiece of the Cabinet, whatever his own opinion might be, and that subsequently he had fallen back to the Cabinet view of the question. That he had been indiscreet, however, was plain enough, and there was such a strong probability that a vote of censure would be passed against him in which the Ministry would be involved, that he thought it right to resign his office. The virulent attack of the Opposition upon Russell was only one instance of the constant employment of the war as a means of party contest. Palmerston had been well received, on the supposition that he was the leader of the war party, and because he was known to have much sympathy with the common views of the time. But though he Discontent with the Ministry. had infused new vigour into the administration, and so far bowed to the popular will as to send out commissioners of inquiry to the Crimea, implying the possibility at least of the truth of the charges popularly alleged against the officials there, the plight of the army in the early spring seemed very little improved. The same stories of suffering and mismanagement, the same incessant depreciation of the power of England, continued to be the favourite theme of the newspapers. The people also began to suffer from the high price of food, which, though perhaps it may be otherwise explained, was not unnaturally attributed to the cessation of trade with the country which at that time supplied us with the largest proportion of our foreign grain. The Ministry were 1855] COMMITTEES OF INQUIRY 277 therefore open to assaults on all sides. The lovers of peace impugned the wisdom of the rejection of the Russian offers at Vienna, and spoke of the sufferings entailed on the people. The war party reiterated their assaults upon the want of energy with which hostilities were carried on, and, while complaining of the incapacity of our officers, opened a door for exhibitions of class feeling, and such motions as that of Mr. Layard, that "the sacrifice of efficiency to family and party interest is a source of danger and shame to the country." The cry for administrative reform went even beyond the army; and motions were brought forward to be subsequently adopted-though means were found at present to get rid of them-for the opening of the services to public competition. In finance the apparently inevitable results of war had been reached. With a revenue amounting to the then unprecedented sum of £63,000,000 there was still a deficit of £20,000,000, and Sir Cornewall Lewis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was obliged to throw aside the prudent measures of his predecessor and contract a loan of £16,000,000. Inquiry. Meanwhile the Committee of Inquiry had continued its sittings; the Commissioners, Colonel Tulloch and Sir John M'Neill, had been preparing their report upon the commissariat, while Result of the General Simpson had been examining into the conduct Committee of of the headquarter staff. The inquiry, which was very exhaustive, proved the truth at all events of the facts alleged by the correspondents of the papers. The sufferings of the army and the frequent confusion of the administration could no longer be questioned. But chiefly through the moderation of Lord Seymour, afterwards Duke of Somerset, the Commissioners did not commit themselves in their report to any personal charges. They traced the suffering to the circumstances under which the expedition had been undertaken, to the ignorance of the administration as to the amount of the enemy's forces in the Crimea and as to the strength of the fortress to be attacked; and to the consequent error by which they were led to expect the immediate success of the expedition, and to make no provision for a winter campaign. It is now nearly certain that the expectation was not ill-grounded, and that the disasters are to be attributed rather to faults of strategy on the part of the generals than to any erroneous conception on the part of the Ministers. As to! the administrative officers, General Simpson felt bound in honour to declare that he found them thoroughly capable and energetic men, and in his position of Chief of the Staff he took care not to interfere with them. "There is not one of them," he writes, "whom I would wish to see removed; I do not think a better selection of staff officers could have been made." The report of the Commissariat Commissioners took a somewhat different course. It contained certain strictures upon General Airey, upon the commanders of the cavalry, and upon Mr. Filder, the Commissary-General. Those officers demanded a formal inquiry, which was granted them, and, after a minute and careful examination, the Board, which sat in Chelsea Hospital, came to the conclusion that they were not to be blamed, but that the evils complained of were to be traced to the action of the Treasury. The same sort of result was arrived at from the inquiries into Reform of the Army Hospitals. the Hospitals. As early as November 1854 English lady nurses had gone out to devote themselves' to the care of the wounded, and Miss Nightingale, enjoying the full confidence of Mr. Sidney Herbert, the Secretary at War, had been appointed to their superintendence. Under her the very defective arrangements for nursing had been rapidly improved. The doctors who, while devoting themselves with exemplary fidelity to the performance of their regular duties, had disregarded the administrative portion of hospital management, fell into the system which she suggested, and the hospitals, as early as December, appear to have been well organised. But the most extraordinary difficulties lay in the way of giving due effect to the management. As far as the Government or military administration was concerned, every possible neglect seems to have occurred—not wilfully, but merely because of the hampering effects of old routine. Not only were the requisite supplies, the most necessary medicines and clothing, wanting, but the officers appear to have been quite ignorant as to the sanitary requisites of an hospital. The rate of mortality therefore, in spite of Miss Nightingale's efforts, continued fearfully high. The new Ministry is to be credited with the appointment of Sanitary Commissioners with powers to act immediately, who so thoroughly did their work that when they were able, on the 17th of March, to set their arrangements in motion, the death-rate fell within a fortnight from 31 to 14 per cent., and by the close of June it had reached the normal rate of our military hospitals at home, namely 2 per cent. Again it was the administration and not the officers who were at fault. Meanwhile the war went on. Wherever the blame should fall, at bottom the winter disasters had been caused by the unprepared condition in which England was habitually kept, and the necessity that some time should elapse before the resources of the country 1855] IMPROVED CONDITION OF THE ARMY the army. 279 could be efficiently employed. As a matter of course therefore, as the war lengthened the condition of the army improved. As Improved the spring advanced the complaints ceased. Supplies condition of were abundant, materials for carrying on the siege lavishly provided, and the employment of private enterprise in the building of the railway at Balaclava enabled the army to obtain without difficulty what the Government so freely bestowed. But although well supplied, the number of our troops was not largely increased; and as reinforcements poured in for the French army, and as the Sardinians had in May joined the Alliance and sent troops to the Crimea, the English operations were somewhat restricted. The defence of the plateau was given up to our allies, and with it went what proved to be the most important of the offensive work, the attack upon the Malakoff Tower on the eastern side of the suburb. The secondary position which circumstances were thus forcing upon England on the land had not been compensated, as the nation had expected, by any marked success upon the sea. The great fleet sent out under Sir Charles Napier with such a flush of hope had returned, after taking Bomarsund, unable to accomplish anything against the great fortresses of Cronstadt and Sweaborg in the Baltic. Nor did the fleet under Dundas in the following year prove more successful. It was compelled to restrict its operations to a useless bombardment of Sweaborg. Even in the Black Sea, where the energetic Admiral Lyons was now in command, the capture of fortresses and stores upon the Sea of Azov (May 27), useful as inflicting some injury upon the enemy and throwing difficulties in their way, but without much importance on the general issue of the war, was all that our fleet could effect. strengthened. Time, which their want of preparation and dilatory tactics had rendered necessary for the Allies, had proved at least as The Russian useful to their opponents. Their great naval fortresses position had become practically impregnable, and the indefatigable genius and resources of Todleben had so improved the defences of Sebastopol that its capture was a more difficult task now for the Allies, strengthened and well-prepared as they were, than it would have been when they first approached it; while the siege was now watched by an enemy which had been raised by reinforcements to 200,000 men. Todleben's defence had assumed an active character, and as the regular parallels and trenches of the Allies drew nearer to the town, frequent combats took place to secure the advanced works which had been thrown out. A hillock known as the Mamelon, in front of the eastern defences, had been occupied by the Russians. Unsuccessful Sebastopol. Death of June 28. Rifle-pits had been dug, from which the trenches were commanded, and opposite the English attack some quarries had been occupied. On the 17th of March the rifle-pits were captured by assaults on the French; a few days later a powerful sortie of the garrison was repulsed. On the 19th of April a general bombardment of the town again began, but without definite result. Shortly after this General Canrobert, too anxious-minded to be a very successful commander-in-chief, resigned his position, and was succeeded by General Péllissier, a man of firmer character. The attack now assumed a more active form. On the 17th of June, while the French army captured the Mamelon, and what was known as the White works, the English gained possession of the quarries. The road being thus cleared for a general assault, after a renewed bombardment on the 18th the assault was made. The concerted plan was ruined by an unfortunate error of one of the French generals, who mistook a signal, and for the first time the Russians could fairly boast of a complete success. Both English and French attacks were repelled. Very shortly after this, his first military failure, Lord Raglan died. Exposed as he had been to the constant assaults of the Opposition, and loaded with charges of inefficiency which were proved to be false, he had shown himself able in the field, and had struggled manfully against disasters for which he was not responsible. It may however well be doubted whether his long training in official life and his extremely conciliatory character had not somewhat deprived him of the ready power of facing unexpected difficulties, and induced him to forego too readily the dictates of his own better judgment for the sake of maintaining the appearance of unanimity among the Allies. He was succeeded in command by General Simpson, a man of much less ability, of advanced age and failing health. After the failure of the late assault the siege-works had been continued, and were gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the city. A renewed assault appeared imminent; and as in November, so now on the 16th of August, the covering army of the Russians made a desperate attempt to avert it. Coming down from the Mackenzie heights at the east end of the harbour, they pushed into the valley of the Tchernaya, a movement which was to be followed by a general assault upon the plateau both from the valley and from the city itself. The French and Sardinians, without the assistance of the English, succeeded, after several hours of severe fighting, in repelling the assault in the valley, and thus preventing the execution of the further parts of the plan which depended Battle of the Tchernaya. Aug. 16. |