BOOKS.
MR. KINGLAKE'S BATTLE OF INK ERMAN.* MR. KINGLAKE has added a fifth storey to the mighty structure intended to include a portion only of the Crimean War. His new volume will gratify admirers, but fail to conciliate the opponents of that mode of writing military history which he has chosen. His principle of composition is amplification, and he aims at producing effects by skilfully blending together a conglomerate of detail. He may be likened to an architect who, in describing a great cathedral, not only followed the fortunes of each piece of carved stone-work almost from the quarry to its site in the edifice, but portrayed the labourers who hoisted and the masons who fixed it in its bed. This method, painfully conspicuous in the narra- tives of the Alma and Balaclava actions, loses none of its salient characteristics when applied to the bloody wrestle of few against many which we call the Battle of Inkerman. Once more we have whole sets of cabinet pictures in succession, each finished within an inch of its life, and placed side by side, forming a gallery of separate exploits, which, without some imagination and great familiarity with the original authorities, it is most difficult to conceive in any intimate connection. The treatment is so minute that barely a corporal's guard is left unaccounted for ; and we are, so far as words can effect that end, brought face to face with each aspect of the rugged, bosky ground over which the combat raged. There is, of course, something to be said for a method enabling the author to scatter sparks of glory upon, not only Generals and captains, but serjeants and privates. The soldiers who fought at Inkerman, if they do not question his accuracy, will be proud of Mr. Kinglake's detailed chronicle of their deeds ; and
The Invasion of the Crimea: in Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan. By %V. A. Kinglake. Vol. V. Battle of Inkerman. London and Edinburgh: Blackwood and Sons. the nation from whom they sprung, if the slow march of his courtly and processional style does not weary, will welcome pages abound- ing in descriptions of such daring and steadfastness as we are- accustomed to associate with the records of chivalry or the- chapters of romance. To aid those who have not visited the Crimea, or who cannot consult more elaborate plans, Mr. King- lake has furnished a plenteous supply of maps showing the stages- of the fight, and he has, besides, applied an expressive nomencla- ture to the conspicuous features of the rocky nook in which the battle was fought. Moreover, he has taken unbounded pains to ascertain the numbers engaged, not only as a whole, but at. special moments ; so that we see the scanty bands who faced the multitudinous enemy at dawn gradually augmented, and still re- maining, even when the French are included, barely a third of their snsnilants. Apparently, the laborious author has obtained some facts from all the actors who survived or survive, and, in-- deed, the knowledge they supplied was necessary to the comple- tion of his design, since without their aid he could not have followed, step by step, the fortunes of each little host, the aggregate of whose rencontres with the enemy make up the battle. One peculiarity of the volume, however, will strike the least observant,—the presence of the self-conscious historian, whose personality literally pervades the narrative, and never- suffers itself to be forgotten, nor forgets itself for one moment. The author, in the full-dress of a style always correct, yet over- laid, not so much with ornament as with detail, moves serenely through the hurly-burly like a tutelary genius, appointed by fate,. not to " ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm," but to note and explain its eddying torment to an applauding world. "If," wrote Sir John Burgoyne in his " Rough Notes " on Mr. Kinglake's earlier volumes, " if the author's exaggerated abuse and panegyrics had been omitted, and his diffusiveness in dissertation not duly- bearing on the subjects, and want of military knowledge [had been] remedied, a very pretty history with about half the writing. would have been the result." The criticism is too sweeping, but undoubtedly it hits the blots which reduce the value of the _Invasion of the Crimea. George Eliot, in speaking of Mr. Brooke, says he had a thinking organ at the end of his pen, which led him along ; and in like manner, though in a far less degree, Mr. Kinglake's pen exerts no slight influence over the action of his mind.
The battle of Inkerman, begun by a surprise of the English,. was continued, for the greater part, in the midst of a fog, was waged in craggy or wooded hollows, on a narrow front, mainly by troops which came up in little bands. Neither the Commander-- in-Chief nor the General, Pennefather, exercised any serious directing influence over the combats, and it was impossible for- the keenest eye to see what was passing, even on so restricted a- field. How, save in general terms, can such a battle be described, or how judged except by its results ? Admiral Slade, otherwise known as Mushaver Pasha, present on the scene, after giving a, brief outline of the surprise, says :—" What followed none with a. due regard for accuracy would venture to describe. It was a mêlée, a struggle, a fight liand to hand, foot to foot, but not a_ battle involving command and manoeuvres. Generals and soldiers. were commingled, were shot down side by side ; captains fought like privates, privates fought like captains, each man striving like a knight for his own honour. No orders were given, but words. of encouragement resounded on all sides,—now to attack this battery, now to recapture that gun, now to charge on the right, now- to stand firm on the left." And further on he writes, "Livy's remark_ on the Roman army surprised by the Volscians is applicable to the army surprised at Inkerman Militum etiam sine rectore- stabilis virtus tutata est.'" Such is the old sailor's concise- summary. Now, Mr. Kinglake has endeavoured to analyse confusion, resolve it into separate actions, and accord to each his meed of honour. He is not daunted by the remark that " none- with a due regard for accuracy would venture" on the enterprise_ Of course, if he has been correctly informed by the actors, he has triumphed over the sweeping prohibition. But while we are able.. to say that the effect of this mass of detail is not discordant with, the general results, who can tell whether the details themselves are,. we will not say untrue, but strictly subordinate to time, space, and their relations one to another? Beyond question, Mr. King,lalce's literary skill has enabled him to present in an effective shape a series- of heroic encounters justifying the phrase of Mushaver Pasha, that each man strove like a knight for his own honour. But when all is done,. we are left with the doubt how far "the thinking. organ at the end oh his pen " has shaped, coloured, intensified, not only the incidents,. but their place in, and their bearing on the issues of, the battle.. We must take it for granted, however, as a picture, more or
less like ; marred in the execution, from an artistic point of view, by a certain drawl in Mr. Kinglake's style, which perpetually suspends the dramatic movement, and turns our attention, most vexatiously, from the deep tragic interests of the strife to the author and his peculiarities as a manipulator of the English lan- guage. And the habit of interpolating mannered, not to say affected, remarks, reflective or explanatory, is all the more pro- voking because Mr. Kinglake shows that he can narrate fiery battle anecdotes with energy and condensed point. The result is that when the eager reader, amused, excited, irritated, has toiled through the volume, he, if desirous to be informed, is obliged to reconstruct the whole story, and frame for himself, if he can, a succinct conception of its sublime aspect. We do not deny that Mr. Kinglake has peopled the dreary waste of Inkerman with bands of heroes, nor that he has succeeded in throwing their shape, temper, and bearing into high relief ; on the contrary, they stand out amidst the mist, and smoke, and flame- flashes like the combatants of legend and romance. But, to our minds, the framework of the picture seriously mars its effect, and we see reasons for Sir John Burgoyne's rough remark, that "with about half the writing" we should have had "a very pretty history."
As to the battle itself, Mr. Kinglake, beyond the series of battle-pieces, brings out little, if anything, that is new. The Russians, desiring to anticipate the arrival of reinforcements from France and England, and really anxious, by Todleben's own con- fession, to prevent the French from assaulting the Flagstaff Battery, made use of their own fresh troops at the earliest moment with intent to crush the Allies. They justly selected the English right as the point of attack, because its defenders were few and its naturally strong contracted front was not at the time rendered impregnable by a few well-placed field-works. The " Barrier " on the Post Road was a mere conti- nuous heap of loose stones ; the entrenchments covering the 2nd Division were, Colonel Hamley tells us, "more like ordinary drains than field-works ;" and on the right was a sand-bag bat- tery, neither defensive nor intended to be so, being merely cover for two 18-pounders, sent up to drive away Russian artillery posted near the Inkermau ruins, and withdrawn when the hostile guns were expelled. Against this position the Russians directed 40,000 men and nearly 100 guns, while the onset was facilitated by a power- ful display of troops in the Tchernaya Valley, and a heavy sortie from the town defences pushed into the French siege-works on their left. It seems incredible that a little force, never exceeding 13,000 men, for a long time limited to 3,000, should have been able to beat off a powerful army. "According to all calcula- tions," writes Hamley, "the Russians were justified in considering the day their own, but the extraordinary valour of the defenders of the position set calculation at defiance." The conflict was really more like the defence of a breach than a pitched battle. Whether the incidents passed as narrated by Mr. Kinglake or not, the upshot proves that the enemy was struck and dashed back wherever he protruded his heavy columns from the mist, and the end must have been gained by a fiery and sustained devotion, a ready, dauntless valour, and an unyielding endurance possibly without a parallel in the annals of warfare. We hold that the battle of Inkerman is one of the few recorded encounters between brave adversaries which it is un- gracious to criticise. Mr. Kinglake has his own theories and ex- planations,—for example, his somewhat unfair contrast between the mode which Sir de Lacy Evans adopted to rebut an attack in open day poorly supported by artillery, and the method pursued by General Pennefather to overthrow enemies he could not see, whose numbers he could not estimate, and who were almost in his midst before the men in camp could run to arms. He has also some notions on the mechanical character of the Russian Plan, and sharp observations intended to show why a certain "gap " existed and why it was not filled, which are plausible, and may be correct. But the main fact is that a weak force, brought together in driblets, and assembled on a space not more than a mile long, did by its in- stinctive bounding courage and hardness of grain dash back, by mere superiority of fighting power, now impetuous, now dogged, the waves of a resolute, hostile soldiery which surged forward again and again in almost appalling force. Pennefather's method —if we may use the term—worked out by such hardy and enter- prising subordinates as he commanded, may have been theoretically wrong, but it was practically effective ; and criticism is pointless when levelled at success won against tremendous odds. Nor do we think that Mr. Kinglake is quite just to the French. If some of their battalions faltered, as they undoubtedly did, if their weakness for a moment bred great peril, it cannot be gainsaid that they did strike in soon enough to cover the right flank, and that Bosquet's last charge swept that side absolutely clear. Probably Marshal Canrobert erred gravely when he suspended his offensive action so early in the day, left the final strokes of battle to the weakened English, and refrained from converting a severe repulse into a splendid and fruitful victory. Like so many other shortcomings in the Crimean war, that must be attributed partly to Canrobert's shrinking from responsibility, but mainly to the evils inherent in a divided command. So far as the British were concerned, nothing can detract from their renown. The table of losses tells its own tale, for those who suffered most fought most ; and when a force of 7,646 is diminished by 2,357, none can doubt upon whom the brunt of battle fell. Inkerman was won by the courage and tenacity which those terrible figures may be said to represent ; and regarded as a shining exemplification of such qualities in a crucial experiment, Inkerman may justify a grandiose and detailed method of treatment which, although a fine specimen of the writing art, cannot be held up as a model to future military historians.
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