THE LETTERS OF A CRIMEAN SAILOR.*
ALL things considered, the sailors were, after the Queen, the first favourites of the Jubilee Procession. It seems as if recent years and latest events have brought home to us more than ever the maritime essence of England's position and security, so much so that there has been almost a Nelsonic revival amongst us, and if the country were polled to declare her favourite hero, it would be Nelson who would carry her suffrages to-day. The distinctive character of the sailor, moreover, has always made him a favourite in England. He is a fact in the House of Commons, he is a fact on the plat- form, he is a fact on the stage. And the publication of Sir Leopold Heath's letters will only give a fresh impulse to hie popularity amongst those who read. The old Admiral gracefully dedicatee them, in his eightieth year, to the few survivors of his many friends in the Black Sea Fleet of 1854 and 1855. " These letters," he says, " have lain on a shelf untouched and almost unthought of for many years ; but as is the habit of old men, I took them down recently to refresh my memory of the events in which I had taken part during the most stirring times of my earlier life. They interested me much, and I publish them thinking that perhaps they may also interest others." The plea is very modest and very simply put, with a pleasant absence of any reference to an unwilling but overwhelming call, which is the usual herald of a number of private deliverances about other people, usually of an unpleasant nature, which it is so much the fashion of the day to bring to light. And the book is very modest too. The letters are frankly and simply written, fall of shrewd and homely observation, of acute and quiet criticism, and sailorlike to the core. Up to 1855 Admiral Heath was in command of the ' Niger' or the ' Sanspareil,' carrying out the ordinary duties of the service. After that he held the posi- tion of Harbour Master at Balaclava or of Principal Agent of Transports. And as his letters begin with the declaration of war and end with the fall of Sebastopol, he has invested them with a dramatic unity and with a sense of finish and completeness not by any means to be always found in publica- tions of the kind. He takes his reader's fancy at once by announcing at the outset that " it is a bold thing to begin journals on such large paper," but that he does so in order to bind them up afterwards, if he should return safe and sound. Happily he did ; end we welcome his letters as a characteristic and attractive addition to the literature of that most unlucky, most unreasonable, and most unprofitable war.
The more general the light shed upon the story of the enterprise, the more widespread seems to have been the dis- content. Down from the magnificent charge which was not war, to the infinite details of clothing and commissariat, everything seems to have been muddled, nobody knows how, as if some malison were attached to the unholy alliance between the Christian and the Turk. At this present day the consequences are alive when for a very large proportion of Englishmen the much-vaunted " Concert of the Powers," whether it be or be not a pretty paraphrase for the whims of the German Emperor, has served to assist what they can only regard as a retrograde movement in the graver story of the world,—graver, from their point of view, than anything that Concerts can compass or Ministers can plan. Greeks and Cretans may be bad Christians. That we do not know. But they are professing Christians ; we do know that. And though the days of the Crusades are past, the Crusades reversed are but of evil omen. The cross interferes to set the crescent up, and the end is not an easy thing to see.
Admiral Heath, like the good sailor he was, has no political or other scruples to interfere with the direct calls of duty. His principal quarrel appears to have been with the special correspondents, who certainly appear to have possessed the knack of irritation, at that period especially, in the very highest degree. The Admiral appears to have been amongst the number of those who came in for their strictures. " I read all the evidence before the Committee as reported in the Evening Mail," he writes, "and therefore, I suppose, as reported in the Times. But you see the Herald, which I do not, and I was quite unaware that its abuse of me still continued. We have learnt much during our war as to our commissariat, &c., but if we ever make such another war without gagging ' our own correspondents' at the very beginning, we shall make a
• Letters from the Black Sea during the Crimean War, 1864-56. By Admiral Sir Leopold George Heath, S.C.B. London: Bentley and Son.
greater mistake than any we have made on this occasion." Admiral Heath, however, who claims to be the first sailor whose letters have contributed to the story of the Crimean War, where so many of the sister-service have preceded him, takes occasion of the " very strong language " which he attributes to the English newspapers on the subject of Balaclava Harbour and the loss of the ' Prince,' to compare the correspondents of the present day very favourably with their Crimean predecessors, as the "steady history-recording gentlemen who now accompany our armies." We ourselves doubt if correspondents have changed much more than sailors or soldiers, but the gentlemen of the pen may well claim brotherhood in the matter of language with many of the soldiers whose letters on the Crimean War have been reviewed in these columns from time to time. More outspoken con- demnation of the powers that were, of their generalship and their plans and arrangements, we have not read anywhere than from some of those military pens. Nor does Admiral Heath himself, though as a rule not much disposed to pass unfavourable judgments on his chiefs, hesitate sometimes to exprass himself pretty strongly upon the events which come under his notice :-
" Our sanitary measures have from the first been neglected," he writes in February, 1855. "The Russians were in no position to attack us when we first came round ; we had no trenches to guard ; our commissariat horses were still alive ; the roads were still good ; and yet not a tent did we send to the front for at least ten days, and much sickness was the consequence. No roads were made ; no attempt to store provisions in front; no piles of fire- wood collected ; no regimental workhouses established ; each man did for himself, and three or four times the necessary fuel was .used. Houses were pulled down, which now would have been invaluable as hospitals or storehouses—not a single pre. cautionary measure was taken with a view to a possible failure in immediately occupying Sebastopol. Lord Raglan is said to have had permission to order all the Mediterranean garrisons to his support ; none were sent for until a fortnight after the necessity for them had become a public topic of conversation. I believe Sidney Herbert was quite right in saying that Lord Raglan's demands had always been forestalled by the supplies from England."
This is but one passage out of many which fully support the general contention of the wicked correspondents, that no greater confusion was ever made. Universal testimony has confirmed it. In the end, the success or failure of a particular campaign turns upon the particular General, and Lord Raglan was unequal to the post. And there is one sentence in the extract we have quoted which hits the core of the matter. The allied authorities regarded Sebastopol as the mere start of the campaign, and had not the smallest idea of being kept out of it at all. It was very wrong of the Russians so to frustrate their calculations, and so far gravely to discredit the " Concert of the Powers " of that day. " The visit was well worth the trouble," writes Admiral Heath when at last the forces entered the obstinate town. " Sebastopol does not `fall every day," he says with much veracity. " Todleben should have been a railway contractor. The dream of moving
such masses of earth as are piled up in all directions, to shelter the soldiers as much as possible from shells, and of digging such ditches and forming so massive a parapet, could hardly have entered any one's head but that of a Brassey or Pole. The sight is quite wonderful, and the more so from the knowledge that it was all done (as I heard a French officer remark) sous nogre nez." More than once in his letters does Admiral Heath speak of the supineness which allowed the enemy to execute very important work, uninterfered with, under our very nose. The Navy, of course, had but a watching part to play during the events chronicled by the Admiral ; so that his own especial part is more that of a critic and a commentator, but full throughout of the thorough conception of duty, and thorough love of his profession, which are the sailor's special standpoint. Soldiers
seldom seem to us so devoted to their calling as such. It is a pleasant, breezy book from that point of view, to be read and marked with pleasure. And fresh from the scenes of the Jubilee it is very interesting to read the closing despatches of the Duke of Newcastle after the battle of Inkerman, and to find Admiral Heath attributing the note of their sympathetic words to the heart and head of the Queen herself :—" Let not any private soldier in those ranks believe that his conduct is unheeded—the Queen thanks him—his country honours him.
Proud of the victory won by her brave Army, grateful to those who wear the laurels of this great conflict, the Queen is painfully affected by the heavy loss which has been incurred, and deeply sensible of what is owing to the dead." That is the note which the Queen has never failed to strike, making her soldiers feel that she was as much with them as if she led them herself. If the record is sadder than usual in connection with that wasted war, it no less lends a fitting close to an interesting book.
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