CHAPTER VII. WAR WITH RUSSIA.-Gloomy position and prospects of the Army in the Crimea at the beginning of the Year-Report of Commission of Inquiry, and Evidence taken under it-Wretched condition and sufferings of the Troops-Two Manifestoes of the Emperor of RussiaAccess of Sardinia to the Convention of the 10th of April, 1854— Terms and Provisions of the Treaty-Speech of Count Cavour to the Sardinian Chamber-Circular Note of Count Nesselrode. FRANCE.— Reconstruction of the Imperial Guard, and Speech of the Emperor -Attempted Assassination of the Emperor on the 28th of April— Account of the Regicide-Second attempt at Assassination on the 8th of September. RUSSIA.-Last Illness and Death of the Emperor Nicholas-Accession to the Throne of Alexander II.-His Manifesto on the occasion Circular Despatch of Count Nesselrode to the Diplomatic Agents of Russia at Foreign Courts-Rumoured Insurrection of Peasants in the Ukraine-Renewal of Diplomatic Negotiations at Vienna-Letter of Instructions from the Earl of Clarendon, to the English Plenipotentiary, Lord John Russell History of the Proceedings at the Vienna Conference-The Russian Proposals examined-Ultimate failure of the Negotiations. FRANCE.-Speech of the French Emperor at the opening of the Legislative Assembly -The new Loan-Report from the Minister of Finance. THE of HE close of the preceding year was overshadowed with gloom. Notwithstanding the brilliant victories of Alma and Inkermann, and the success which had attended the allied arms in every conflict with the enemy in the field, the result of the struggle had not equalled the expectations of the Allies. The eager impatience with which the fall of Sebastopol had been looked for, had given place to doubt and apprehension. The resources of that indomitable fortress seemed not only inexhaustible, but to be superior to all that the united skill and science of England and France could bring to the attack. The fire of the besieged was incontestably superior to that of the besiegers; and the lines of defence constructed by the genius of Todtleben grew each day stronger, and seemed to defy the power of artillery. Before the beleaguered stronghold of the Russians the army of the Allies lay for months inactive and impotent, while the horrors of a Scythian winter paralysed the troops, and they were sufficiently occupied in defending themselves against the weather, and providing themselves with food. Of the state of the French we know little, for they had the discretion not to proclaim to the world their privations and mishaps; but from the English camp came a tale of suffering which shocked the public ear, and almost surpassed belief. down dead from starvation. They had not strength to struggle through the muddy morass which lay between the camp and Balaklava, when sent down for supplies. In the meantime the harassing fatigue of nightwork in the trenches decimated the ranks. Cold, wet, and shelterless, the weary soldiers stood hour after hour in the ditch, and then returned to their tents. with hardly a single comfort to cheer them, or appliance to keep off disease. Young recruits, fresh from England, and utterly unseasoned to the climate, were, owing to the diminished numbers of the army, compelled to undertake this destructive duty, and perished by hundreds in consequence. Lest we should be suspected of exaggeration in the above statement, we will quote some passages from the report and evidence of a Commission of Inquiry instituted by the British Government in the Crimea.* We have, in our last volume, alluded to this painful subject. The unfitness of our military system to cope with the situation in which the army found itself was glaringly exposed. Nothing that was wanted seemed to be forth coming everything seemed to be in its wrong place. The troops were perishing from cold, while piles of great coats were lying useless at Balaklava. Porter would have been an invaluable beverage, while rum was pernicious; but nothing but rum was served out to the soldiers, although abundance of porter had been sent out from England. When a particular medicine was urgently required, it was found that the supply was exhausted, and army surgeons were obliged to borrow some of the simplest elements of the pharmacopoeia from the private medicine-chests of officers. The soldiers were not only ill-clad, but ill-fed: the difficulty of getting up provisions to the camp was so great that they were often obliged to be content with scanty rations. Sick men, who were almost too weak to eat, had to support themselves upon hard biscuit instead of bread. The men had often to eat their rations of meat raw, for they had not sufficient fuel to light fires for cooking. The coffee sent from England was green, neither ground nor roasted; and there was no apparatus for preparing it scurvy was rife amongst the troops, and there was frequently no lime-juice to be got. The wretched horses of the cavalry gnawed each other's tails in the agony of hunger, and dropped ment, 1856. In their report the Commissioners (Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch) say: "The sufferings of the army in the course of the winter, and especially during the months of December and January, must have been intense. We have not noted all the particulars related to us, many of which were unconnected with our inquiry; but we may state, that it has been only by slow degrees, and after the frequent repetition of similar details, as one witness after another revealed the facts that had come under his own observation, that we have been able to form any adequate conception of the distress and misery undergone by the troops, or fully to appreciate the * Presented to both Houses of Parlia unparalleled courage and constaney with which they have endured their sufferings. Great Britain has often had reason to be proud of her army, but it is doubtful whether the whole range of military history furnishes an example of an army exhibiting, throughout a long campaign, qualities as high as have distinguished the forces under Lord Raglan's command. The strength of the men gave way under excessive labour, watching, exposure, and privation; but they never murmured, their spirit never failed, and the enemy, though far outuumbering them, never detected in those whom he encountered any signs of weakness. Their numbers were reduced by disease and by casualties to a handful of men, compared with the great extent of the lines which they constructed and defended, yet the army never abated its confidence in itself, and never descended from its acknowledged military preeminence. . . . . "The roads, or tracks, were so deep in mud, that the journey which the men had to perform from the camp on the heights to Balaklava and back, carrying up rations, warm clothing, huts, or ammunition, frequently occupied twelve hours, during the whole of which time they were without food, shelter, or rest,-unless standing in deep mud, drenched and cold, instead of struggling through it, can be called rest. It was in consequence of the want of transport that, even after firewood had been provided at Balaklava, the men had to undergo the labour and exposure of digging up roots to cook their food, without always being able to procure enough for that purpose. It was in consequence of the want of transport that the men were repeatedly on short rations, and that they were deprived, for about six or seven weeks, of their rations of rice, which would have been so beneficial at that precise time when hardly any vegetables were supplied to them, and hardly a man in the army escaped the prevailing diseases. The men were overworked in the trenches, and on picquets and guards; and they suffered in health from the excessive fatigue, watching, and exposure which those duties involved. To these, in consequence of the want of transport animals, were superadded other duties, involving an amount of fatigue and exposure which alone would have been trying to their constitutions." The state of the Light Cavalry brigade which performed the rash but gallant exploit at Balaklava, may be judged of from the following extract from the evidence of one of the witnesses :-" After twenty days of short rations, the horses being at the same time exposed to very inclement weather on unfavourable ground, the condition of the troop-horses was deplorable. When the brigade moved down on the 2nd of December, 1854, it was necessary to have the horses led, as they were too weak to carry their riders; and, notwithstanding, many of them died on the way from exhaustion, and a considerable number were left on the ground, unable to move, with men to attend to them. The cause of this great deficiency in forage for the brigade was the want of transport to carry it to the front." The witness said he believed that there never was any want of barley at Balaklava, and that the horses might, therefore, have had their full rations of grain if there had been any means of carrying it to the camp. Another witness stated that it frequently happened that there was no other than salt meat for the sick; and that until the first week in December the sick lay on the bare ground, with nothing under them but a blanket, except a few who were furnished with mats. Another imputed the sickness that prevailed to, first, fatigue and want of sleep; second, improper food; and third, want of sufficient cloth ing. He said also that the want of sufficient means of cooking was one important cause of disease. Others attributed the prevalence of scurvy to the long use of salt rations, without sufficient change of diet, or a supply of vegetables, aggravated by exposure and fatigue. Another officer had reason to believe that some of the men had been as much as three days with out tasting any cooked food, or anything warm. Mr. Commissary-General Filder stated that a large proportion of fresh vegetables which were shipped by Government turned out upon arrival to be spoiled, and that in consequence of the state of the roads it was impossible to carry forage in carts to the Light Brigade of Cavalry, when encamped in front; and he could not spare additional animals to make good the deficiency. Other witnesses said that the men were unable to prepare the green coffee when it was issued; that there was difficulty in obtaining sufficient fuel for cooking; that those who had been on duty in the trenches often returned so exhausted that they could not or would not exert themselves to get fuel and cook their food; that the trenches were deep in mud; that the men were in such a state that they loathed the food which they were unable to cook, and lived chiefly on biscuits and rum; that on the 30th of March, 1855, the quinine in store was exhausted, and no fresh supply obtained for seventeen days; that there was a want of boots to protect the feet of the men from wet. Colonel Horn attributed the great reduction in the strength of the men to exposure to wet, without the means of drying or changing their clothes; they were compelled to sleep in wet clothes, on damp ground, in their tents; and in some cases he understood that they ate their pork rations raw. General Sir Colin Campbell said, that the provisioning of the troops in front would have been much facilitated by the construction of a road from Balaklava to the front; but that could not be done for want of hands, and in his opinion it was out of the question for the troops to have constructed such a road, and at the same time to have carried on the military operations in which the army was engaged. He declared that at the time when the men under his command were living on salt meat and biscuit, the French troops immediately adjoining had fresh meat and fresh bread every second day. procured in quantities ridiculously small, and were at times altogether wanting." A third gave the following evidence: "During the wet season, from November to December, and of the bitter cold, from that to the end of February, the men had no other protection than that of the weather-worn circular tent. "In rain, the ground inside was a mass of mud; in snow, a mass of filth. From morning till night they sat in the mud of the trenches, from night till morning they lay in the mud of their tents. Can it be a matter of surprise that dysentery and diarrhoea ran riot in the camp? At first, too, the men were in rags; afterwards they were liberally supplied with sheep-skins, and other garments, but not before many fell victims to disease, caused by the scanty covering. A prolific source of sickness was frostbite, caused in many instances by the want of boots-at a period, too, when sacks of boots were being brought from Balaklava. A large portion proved too small. No more culpable piece of neglect has transpired during the campaign, than that of sending out for the men the boots of boys; for men, too, whose feet were swollen and tender from long marching and other causes, and to whom a double pair of socks was a necessity. I have seen men, during the coldest part of the winter, going to the trenches and on guard, with their feet on their boots instead of in them." "On the 8th of January, of the 63rd Regiment, only seven remained fit for duty. On the same day the 46th, which had landed on the 8th of November, just two months before, mustered only 60 serviceable men. The 90th, a strong and healthy regiment, buried 50 men in eleven days; and one full company, during the same time, had only 17 men out of hospital. The three battalions of Guards were mere names. Out of 1562 men, sent out to the Scots Fusiliers, from first to last, only 210 remained. The three battalions, which in all represented some 4500 rank and file, at this time did not muster 700 men on parade, and of that number there was not one man who, in a time of peace, would have been considered fit to be out of hospital. During the month of January, the troops always in hospital at camp averaged upwards of 3000 men, and in the same month no less than 4073 invalids were actually sent away to Scutari.† the War in the East, from the departure of Lord Raglan to the capture of Sebastopol." By N. A. Woods, late special correspondent of the Morning Herald at the seat of war. London, Longman, 1855. It would be an act of great injustice not to mention the benefits conferred on the army by the distribution of supplies provided by subscriptions set on foot by the proprietors of the Times newspaper. The fund was called "the Times Fund," and Mr. Macdonald was the administrator. Mr. Woods says:-"By the exertions and foresight of Mr. Macdonald, the 39th Regiment, which was en route to Balaklava without warm clothing of any kind, was supplied with flannel waistcoats, drawers, socks, gloves, comforters, &c., for every man in the corps. Mr. Macdonald also established a little tea-house at Balaklava, where the sick sent down from camp and waiting to be embarked were given beeftea, soup, arrowroot, brandy and water, tea, and whatever their exhausted condi* "The Past Campaign; a Sketch of tion required. It would be difficult, if not VOL. XCVII. In addition to this evidence, we may quote some extracts from a work written by an eye-witness, who was present with the army during the whole of the dismal winter. He says: [0] |