| Saturday Review 7 February 1863: Hayward>
| <Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea. (Concluding Notice.)>
| The expedition to Sebastopol having been resolved upon, to 
| what hands was this vast enterprise entrusted? What great 
| commanders had England and France to lead their armies? 
| This is a question which, perhaps, deserves to be more 
| considered than it usually is by politicians undertaking a 
| great war. It might not have been unworthy of the 
| consideration of Mr. Pitt, for instance, when he was rushing 
| into a conflict with the French nation, armed in defence of its 
| own existence, whether he had any trustworthy general to 
| put at the head of his forces. No doubt it may be said, with 
| some truth, that the right man will show himself in the end; 
| but it is rather unpleasant practice even for the nation, much 
| more for the soldiers, to discover the right man through a 
| series of experiments conducted by such leaders as the 
| Duke of York.
| France had famous generals ~~ Changarnier, Bedeau, 
| Lamoriciere, Cabiagnac, and Leflo; but these men had 
| shared the general fate of the eminence and honour of 
| France ~~ they had been arrested in their beds and flung 
| into prison vans, and were now removed from the service of 
| their country. To command the French army in their place, 
| there was, indeed, a Marshal of France, but one whose <hi> 
| baton </hi> had been won, not in the field of battle against 
| the enemy, but in service less indicative of military genius ~~ 
| on Thursday, the day of blood, against the peaceable 
| inhabitants of Paris. The character of Marshal Achille St. 
| Arnaud, formerly Jacques le Roy, is thus drawn by Mr. 
| Kinglake: ~~ <q> </q>
| This, if we mistake not, is a good piece of historical 
| portraiture. Marshal St. Arnaud was a man, in one sense, of 
| remarkable military experience, inasmuch as he had thrice 
| gone through a career in the army, having been twice forced 
| to quit it on account of excesses running to the extreme of 
| wildness, if not actually amounting to crime. He was near 
| forty years of age when, with singular elasticity, he entered 
| the military profession for the third time. Joining his corps in 
| Algeria, he pushed his way on that congenial theatre, and 
| rose to well-deserved distinction as the commander of the 
| Infernal Column. Fleury, being in Algeria, on the look-out for 
| a Minister at War adapted to the objects of the President of 
| the Republic, marked Colonel St. Arnaud for his own. 
| Independently of general character, there was a special 
| reason which rendered it quite safe to approach this 
| distinguished officer with such proposals as those which 
| Fleury bore: ~ <q> </q>
| The cave of Shelas and the Boulevard of Paris between 
| them brought St. Arnaud his Marshal’s baton, and placed the 
| fate of the allied armies in his hands. Unfortunately, they did 
| not, with the baton, confer the genius of a Marshal. If Mr. 
| Kinglake’s account is true ~~ as from all we have heard from 
| other sources we believe it to be ~~ St. Arnaud was without 
| ascendancy in the French army, and utter destitute of the 
| power of conducting war on a great scale. He was not, 
| however, without self-confidence of a certain kind, and it 
| appears he formed a scheme for bringing the Turkish as well 
| as French army under his command. The scene in which 
| Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, with supreme courtesy and 
| benign gentleness, blew this intrigue to the four winds, is one 
| of the most graphic and most amusing of the pictures of 
| character drawn by Mr. Kinglake’s hand.
| England, to command her army, had in Lord Raglan a good, 
| brave, skilful and experienced soldier, as well as an 
| honourable and high-minded gentleman ~~ one over whose 
| grave no word ought ever to be spoken but those of 
| sympathy for his heroic sufferings and gratitude for his 
| chivalrous services to a not very kind country. His character 
| as a general is drawn by Mr. Kinglake with evident 
| tenderness, not in a flattering, but still in a forbearing tone. 
| Lord Raglan was sixty-six years old when he was called to 
| lead this hazardous enterprise, and for more than thirty 
| years he had been administering the business of a military 
| office in time of peace, and had thus inevitably become a 
| man of uniformity and routine not suited for the varying 
| emergencies and rapid strokes of war. There was, however, 
| something very fine and worthy of a Paladin of the great 
| Duke in the whole of his character and bearing as a warrior, 
| particularly in the actual field of battle: ~~ <q> </q>
| He was recommended for his present command not only by 
| his military qualifications, but by his courtesy, his address, 
| his power of bending men to his will without apparent 
| pressure, and his familiarity with the French tongue. In the 
| English army he occupied a peculiar and almost 
| unapproachable position as a general of the Duke of 
| Wellington. In fact, Mr. Kinglake hints that the empire which 
| he had over other men from this association, and the historic 
| appeal of his maimed sword-arm, were not without a 
| drawback, since they made other men courtiers in his 
| presence, and prevented them from differing from him, and 
| even from conveying to him unwelcome truths: ~~ <q> </q>
| It is for military men to form a judgment of Lord Raglan’s 
| conduct in the campaign, and of Mr. Kinglake’s reflections 
| upon it. It is clear that he had to take both the campaign and 
| the battle of Alma out of St. Arnaud’s hands, and that what 
| was done was mainly done by him, though he was not 
| untrammelled by the temper and proceedings of his ally; but 
| in justice to the Government it must be allowed that, in the 
| absence of a first-rate general, and looking to the diplomatic 
| as well as the military exigencies of the post, he was as 
| good a man as they could have chosen; and, in justice to 
| himself, it must be remembered that he undertook the 
| expedition most unwillingly, in obedience to what he 
| conceived to be the dictates of his honour, and that he never 
| allowed this unwillingness to prevent his acting with the most 
| ardent zeal, and with all the energy which his age would 
| permit, for then public service.
| The landing of the army was safely accomplished, thanks to 
| the extraordinary efforts of the naval commanders, 
| particularly Lord Lyons; thanks also, it appears, to the 
| indulgent forbearance of Prince Metschikoff, and in despite 
| of a strange proceeding on the part of the French, who 
| moved in the night the buoy which was to mark the 
| respective landing-places of the two armies, whereby, had it 
| not been for the vigilance of Lyons, the landing would have 
| been in danger of miscarriage. It is most likely that their 
| object in doing this was to get more room for themselves and 
| that it was unconnected with the <hi> timides avis </hi> 
| which had been given by some of the French generals in the 
| mid-passage, and overruled by Lord Raglan. The difficulty, 
| however, with which the landing was accomplished ~~ 
| though in fair weather, and without opposition ~~ leaves on 
| our minds a very comfortable impression as to the security of 
| these shores from the visits of an enemy, who would 
| certainly be opposed, on short notice, and who was not 
| master of the sea.
| Mr. Kinglake testifies that the people of the villages on the 
| coast where the army had landed were treated by our 
| soldiers, not only withy mercy, but with kindness and gentle 
| courtesy. The men of the Rifle Brigade made themselves 
| especial favourites in the village where they were quartered. 
| But over this village there suddenly came a dreadful change: 
| ~~ <q> </q>
| Mr. Kinglake is disposed to accuse Lord Raglan of a 
| pedantic dislike to the irregular Ottoman troops, for whom he 
| has himself a great partiality. But possibly Lord Raglan’s 
| aversion, as a regular military man, to irregular soldiers and 
| their unscientific mode of warfare, may have been mingled 
| with his aversion, as a humane man and a gentleman, to 
| propensities in which the <p> “pious and warfaring” </p> 
| race of Turks are at least on a level with the Zouave. In the 
| late war in Montenegro the Turks are stated, by those who 
| made inquiries on the spot, to have mutilated and 
| massacred all their prisoners.
| Mr. Kinglake’s present volumes end with the battle of the 
| Alma. His description of the battle is that of an eye-witness; 
| for he was with Lord Raglan through the day, and sat on 
| horseback at his side, as we gather from an incidental 
| expression, on the knoll in the heart of the Russian position, 
| to which the English General was strangely and fortunately 
| carried by the impetuosity of his horse, and where the 
| English guns were planted which at the most critical moment 
| turned the day. Of course one pair of eyes could not see 
| every event and incident on so extended a field, but where 
| Mr. Kinglake was not himself an eye-witness e has evidently 
| collected the facts by minute and almost microscopic inquiry 
| from those who were. The result is a description of a battle 
| unequalled as far as we know in historical literature, for the 
| vividness with which it brings before the reader the sites, and 
| imparts to him the sensation of a hard fought field. It is 
| exceedingly difficult for a civilian to form any conception of 
| the realities of a mortal conflict, but Mr. Kinglake has 
| succeeded in giving us an impression so intense and forcible 
| that we can hardly doubt its truth. The last halt of the Allies 
| before the battle insight of the enemy’s position is thus 
| described: ~~ <q> </q>
| Perhaps among the incidents of the day there is none which 
| makes the reader feel as though he were actually present in 
| the field more than the account of the long combat between 
| the 7th Fusileers under Colonel Lacy yea and the Kzan 
| column of Russian infantry. The Russian column consisted 
| of two battalions, numbering 1,400 men. It came down upon 
| the Fusileers when they had lost their formation in crossing 
| the river, and before they had been able to reform. They 
| were, to use Mr. Kinglake’s expression, nearly <p> “a 
| knotted chain of soldiery” </p> when the column halted at a 
| distance of fifty yards from their front: ~~ <q> </q>
| Continental soldiers would have expected the loose line to 
| have been at once overpowered by the massive column. But 
| the efficacy of the line, when formed by British soldiers, 
| against the column has been pretty often proved. The 
| imagination of the British soldier is not overpowered by the 
| grandeur of the column; and if the line stands firm, it is 
| obvious that the column, firing from a narrow front, must be 
| worsted: ~~ <q> </q>
| The fight goes on; and at length death and wounds, making 
| cavities, and compelling small changes in the mass, began 
| to injure the symmetry of the Russian column. Its cohesion, 
| though still preserved, was preserved more by the personal 
| exertions of the officers than by the steadiness of the men: 
| ~~ <q> </q>
| The supreme moment at last arrives. Prince Gortschakoff in 
| person comes up, and attempts to led the column on to a 
| charge with the bayonet; but there was not spirit left in the 
| mass to respond to the call. Prince Gortschakoff rode away: 
| ~~ <q> </q>
| Mr. Kinglake fairly discloses all the disasters, blunders, and 
| reverses of the day. His account leaves upon us the decided 
| impression that had Mentschikoff been a General of ordinary 
| ability, had he possessed sense enough to listen to the 
| counsels of a better soldier than himself, had he taken 
| reasonable advantage of the abundant time given him for 
| fortifying his admirable position, had he taken the pains to 
| ride over the ground and discover that a road practicable for 
| artillery led up to the left of this position where he supposed 
| there was nothing but an inaccessible ~~ had he in the 
| action itself showed ordinary presence of mind, and made 
| use of his great superiority in cavalry against the unprotected 
| left of the attacking English ~~ had he attempted to take 
| advantage of the great opening which fortune gave him in 
| the course of the day ~~ the Russian position on the Alma 
| would not have been carried, and the expedition against 
| Sebastopol would have there found a disastrous and 
| disgraceful end. The rash impetuosity of the English nation 
| carried it to the brink of the precipice, and fortune only 
| prevented its falling over.
| As to the conduct of the French on this dangerous day, Mr. 
| Kinglake’s history confirms the opinion, which, though of 
| course not officially promulgated, was at the time generally 
| believed. It was such as for the time completely to sink the 
| reputation of the French army. Bosquet with his division did 
| their duty well, by scaling the height on the Russian left; but 
| when there they were unable to advance, and were, by their 
| confession to Lord Raglan, on the point of being compelled 
| to retreat. As to the other French Generals and their 
| divisions, they appear to have become a helpless mass, 
| which was kept completely in check by eight Russian 
| battalions, and exercised no influence on the fortunes of the 
| day; but, as Mr. Kinglake truly says, this is not the measure 
| of the prowess of the French army ~~ it is the measure only 
| of the prowess of the French army when led by an Achille St. 
| Arnaud, formerly Jacques le Roy.