AN AMATEUR'S TRIP TO THE TRENCHES..
As dates are a great point in reference to transactions in the Crimea, it may be premised that the Amateur arrived at Balaklava on the ad February and quitted it on the 6th March. During the interval he made the best use of his time in observing matters in Bala- klava, the camp, and the road between ; mingling with his own observations quite enough of hearsay, or secondhand remark. He also gives a detailed account of his outward voyage, as well as what he saw at Constantinople : he closes with some general reflections on the results of war, induced by the misery and har- dening effects of which he was a witness, though he advocates the necessity of going on with it now. There is nothing generally new in the facts of the Amateur or in the conclusions to he drawn from them. His sketches have in- dividuality, and they often appear more truthful than the newspaper correspondent, owing to the very cleverness of the last, which raises doubts how far he is improving upon nature ; though the Ama- teur himself has no lack of glibness. The book, however, is rather late. " Varium et mntabile semper "—public. The incident which robs London of reason today, is forgotten a week hence; and the sufferings of the army in the Crimea are, for purposes of excitement, a thing of the past. Perhaps a reaction has set in, from the manner in which the topic was worked while it lasted. The superiority of naval management, at least of the health of the naval brigade, is well established. Tack comes out in another capacity, for which credit has not been given to him—as a clever jockey. Having to "use his intelligence every day," as a witness saidhefore the Committee of Inquiry, the sailor gets an adapta- bility of character.
"The French, somehow, seemed to consider the Highlanders in the light of English Zouaves : why,I cannot imagine ; the sailors, with their unscru- pulous foragin_g and versatile ingenuity, offered much stronger points of re- seniblance. The crafty, unscrupulous way in which the British tar, un- hampered by everlasting, routine, availed himself of everything that was going on, and managed to monopolize the best of everything, was most amazing ! The sailors were the horse-dealers of the entire camp ; and by all accounts, no Spanish gipsies could have displayed greater ingenuity in clip- ping, cropping, and effacing old marks, than did these nautical hocussers. Some of their successful ruses in selling horses to their original proprietors as entirely different animals—appropriating horses, mules, and even dromedaries, without detection—brought to light a characteristic of the sailor that was hardly anticipated. To show the extent of their little appropriations, a short time before I left, an officer of the Commissariat visited the several camps to try and recover some of the numerous animals that were missing from that department of the service—in the sailors' camp alone he claimed forty !
"When I reached the Crimea the sailors had a monopoly in horse-dealing ; and it was very strange indeed if, with a few hours' notice, Jack did not manage to produce a pony or horse to order. One story current at the time was rather rich. An officer from the front, wanting to purchase a pony, asked a sailor whether he had one to sell : he said, 'No, sir, I aint got a pony just now, sir ; but I haa an unkimmon fine dromedery you may have for a pound.' How he had managed to appropriate and maintain so ungainly an animal without detection, I don't know."
Although the Amateur is prone to attack authorities, and joins loudly enough in the cry against routine and formalism,—of which last, by the by, he gives some curious examples of complexity and mismanagement,—he brings forward occasional facts which indicate that part of the suffering is attributable to individuals. That is, particular officers, or for that matter men, had not the tact, ex- perience, training, or, to speak summarily, knowledge of their business, requisite for their position. They seemed in the position of children opening their months, shutting their eyes, and seeing what would be sent them.
"It would be a difficult question, I imagine, to decide what particular want or exposure destroyed the British cavalry. Want of hay, constant exposure, continual barley-feeding, and want of water, all combined to reduce some two or three thousand of the finest cavalry horses in the world to about three hundred steeds that would have disgraced a knacker's yard. The horses were nearly all mangy, and perfect scarecrows; many had been deprived of all caudal luxuriance by the hunger of their neighbours ; all were broken- winded. In fact, it would be hard to say where a more wretched lot of cattle could be collected, without much time and trouble. That the animals were in this state is undeniable ; that they need have been so is not so evident. The French cavalry were not so reduced either in numbers or condition. One regiment of Chasseurs, I think they were, mustered upwards of five hundred in the middle of February—one hundred and fifty more than our two bri- gades! If they could manage to outlive the winter with comparatively small loss i surely our severe loss could hardly have been unavoidable. Except during the beginning of winter, our cavalry were within two miles of their supplies; and their duty was not severe for any but animals in the wretched plight theirs presented. Cavalry officers attribute it very much to the com- plete absence of all forage when they were up in the front; for three whole days the horses were entirely unfed I Granted such was the case —and, in- deed, something of the sort must have happened to bring them so low,—were those privations actually unavoidable? and did no means of mitigation to any extent exist? It is difficult to believe it.
"During my stay in camp, I saw several horses belonging to officers, both cavalry and infantry, that were in excellent condition, and appeared scarcely
• A Trip to the Trenches in February and March 1855. By an Amateur. Pub- lished by Saunders and Otley.
to have suffered at all. Many of these had been up in the front during the whole winter, and therefore could have had no superior facilities for forage. Whenever I inquired about these horses, how it was they presented such a contrast to the majority, I always got the simple answer, Oh, poor brutes, we took some care of them !' and I am firmly convinced it was want of care and want of arrangement that killed so many thousand cavalry and baggage. horses."
The author appears to be a man of some travel and experience speaking of India as if from knowledge, and of the cold and frost- bites of Canada, with a reference to the camp. Of the conduct of some of the surgeons' assistants he gives an indifferent account, under circumstances that do not admit of mistake ; but these medi- cos were probably new hands. Experience may harden men to the externals or concomitants of suffering, and give even a shocking indifference to their manner. But they know what the case re- quires, and do it, so far as can be done, as a matter of business if not of duty. The mere excitement of novelty soon wears off, and leaves nothing. behind it. Even goodness is a sort of habit.
As already intimated, the author's five weeks' experience gave him a bad opinion of the effects of war as well moral as physical. As a matter of argument, he would seem to think with Lord Grey and his friends, that a case could be made out for the late Em- peror of Russia ; but being in, we must go through, not for honour merely but necessity.
"Whatever has been the past or may be the present object of Russian policy regarding the Eastern question—whatever may be the crash of em- pires that must inevitably accompany a long war—it is the duty. and interest of England—in fact, you may say it i her only chance of maintaining her present position in Europe—to go on and prosper in the work she has under- taken. She has interfered deliberately with the sword, and it is only vic- tory or defeat that can warrant her in laying it aside. A peace now, with- out having attained her professed objects, would be a defeat, and nothing short of it. She might by treaties exclude for a time the spread of Russian power in Europe ; but could she by treaty stay the onward stride of her in- fluence in the far East ? It is not armies of Russia awfully arrayed against us on the frontier of India we have to dread ; it is the insidious work of her emissaries, the exaggerated reports of her power and her beneficent rule, that might, if unchecked, cause the natives, not excessively enamoured of the present regime, to look to her as a deliverer rather than as an enemy, that we have to fear. From Cabul to Cape Comorin, and from the Nerbudda to the Godavery, the Hindoo notion of the Russian power is remarkable : the English, they say, fight with thousands of men, the Russians with lees; they fully believe they are a race of giants, and that any one of them can take two Englishmen and knock their heads together. This conception of their power is somehow connected with the certainty of their advent at no very distant period. It is not many years ago that a collector in the Mysore country found a village totally deserted, and on inquiring the reason found that the inhabitants had heard the Russians were advancing, and they had gone to bury their jewels. "The shadow of Russia is on the soil of India. Whether it is the shadow of an event really advancing, or merely the uncertain reflection of one very far distant, I cannot say ; but of this we may be certain that if Russia beats back the united powers of England and France at Sebastopol, the news of her success and the stories of her might will spread like wildfire, and in a week be exaggerated and credited in every bazaar in British India. Every fresh instance of the power of Russia, and of the remarkable vitality she possesses in her extreme dominions, is only an additional argument for a vigorous prosecution of the war. Had her resources proved small and her power mediocre, then we might with truth complain of having been need- leesly alarmed, and plunged unnecessarily into a costly war; but now her prowess, her energy, her resources, and political influence in Europe and Asia, all prove that she has attained a pitch of power which is dangerous to her neighbours and incompatible with the integrity of European nations. The battle must be fought at some time, and the present is our time to do so."
Previous page
