CHAPTER V.

Promotions--Peaceful Toils--Improvements--Memorandum of October 15th--Expedition to Eupatoria countermanded--Intelligence by Telegraph--State of Affairs in Sebastopol--Want of Proper System and Organization--French Review--Extract from Divisional Orders.

During the progress of the Kinburn Expedition, General Orders announced the promotion of Colonel Windham to the rank of Major-General "for distinguished services in the field," and his appointment to the command of the Fourth Division, with which he served as Assistant-Quartermaster-General until he was named to the command of that Brigade of the Second Division, at the head of which he fought on the 8th September.

Lord William Paulet assumed the command of the 2nd Brigade of the Fourth Division, and occupied General Bentinck's old quarters on Cathcart's Hill.

[Sidenote: PREPARING FOR WINTER.]

The camp before Sebastopol, into which Russian projectiles not unfrequently obtruded, was nevertheless tranquil and laborious, as some new settlement in Australian bush or America's backwoods. The Russians continued to pound away at intervals at the ruins of the town they had been forced to abandon. They did little harm to us, and might as well have saved the ammunition, which they often condescended to expend even on a single soldier, wandering among the broken walls or across the plain. Our old friend Bilboquet, long silent, now opened his mouth, and sent shot at the works by Traktir Bridge, or at anything he saw moving in the valley below his muzzles. The English army, convinced that it was to winter in camp, set seriously to work to guard against the effects of weather from which it suffered so grievously, and to make itself as comfortable as possible. Hutting and road-making were the occupations of the hour, and rapid progress was made in both. Strong wooden huts sprang up on every side, and here and there a solid stone dwelling was in course of construction.

It was a striking contrast between the sufferings of the former winter--exposure, want of clothing, and famine--with the prospect of plenty and comfort, and it was pleasant to observe the cheerfulness and the activity that prevailed. Drainage was not neglected, and, indeed, it was a question whether it was not almost overdone. Some of the ditches, dug along each side of the roads, and around the stores, hospital huts, and other establishments, were of formidable width and depth, and of a dark night proved dangerous to wanderers through the camp, especially if they had been taking "just one more glass" in the quarters of some hospitable friend. But the rain frequently descended in torrents, the water swept down the slopes in sheets and floods, and deep drainage was essential.

Mr. Doyne, the superintendent of the Army Works Corps, proceeded vigorously with his labours. Mr. Doyne divided the road into miles, and at every mile was placed a station-hut and a lamp, with a corporal and two men to act as police. We heard nothing but the clatter of the spade and the thud of the pick, varied by frequent explosions of small mines, with which builders and road-makers got rid of the rock that impeded their work. Besides working at the roads, parties were busy at various small jobs, clearing wells, &c. But the want of proper system and organization, which was so often deplorably shown during this war, was again visible. With different arrangements, half the men, perhaps a quarter of them, could have done the work of the whole 10,000 employed on the roads, and probably have done it better, because they would have been less crowded. Thus, for instance, a regiment of the Third Division, at the farthest extremity of the camp, marched down to work at Balaklava, returning at night, daily performing a distance of nearly fifteen miles. Of course, this was just so much power taken out of the men, and the army was full of boys whose strength was not equal to a good day's work. It could not, in fact, be got out of them, even though they had not to walk long distances.

There were frequent alarms, but many were of opinion--some of them persons whose opinion had weight--that our Muscovite friends had not the remotest idea of attacking us, and that Lord Panmure's information to a contrary effect, derived from Berlin, proceeded, in fact, from St. Petersburg, or, at any rate, from friends of our enemies, who desired to prevent us taking advantage of what little fine weather remained to undertake fresh expeditions against them.

The telegraph brought information that the Russians were about to abandon the north side also. There was no visible sign of such evacuation, nor was there any probable reason to assign for it, excepting that the Russians would find it impossible to supply their army during the winter. On this point opinions differed widely. Some thought that the Russians would experience no difficulty in bringing enough supplies by the road from Perekop; others doubted that the road was sufficient, and were also of opinion that the Russian means of transport would run short. It was pretty certain that no large depôt of provisions existed, and also that none had ever existed, not even at the commencement of the siege, near at hand. In the previous winter the Russians--who doubtless never contemplated a siege of such duration, and probably never dreamt of an attack by land at all, or made sure of speedily beating off any naval force brought against their great fortress--had a constant stream of supplies pouring into the town. It was urged that they had taken advantage of the summer to lay in stores; but the drought of that season was as unfavourable to such an operation as the wet and cold and heavy roads of winter; and, unless by camels, which could do but little, transport must have been very difficult. The loss of beasts of draught and burden must have been prodigious, and the wear and tear of the ill-made carts proportionately large. The chief motive for retaining the position was, that negotiations would be conducted more favourably that winter, whilst the enemy had a footing in the Crimea, than if they had moved out, leaving us to garrison Sebastopol and Simpheropol.

On the 15th of October, the army was ordered to be under arms at half-past 5 A.M.; working parties, for railways, roads, &c., to come on duty at 9 instead of 8 A.M.: this latter relaxation was granted in order to give the men time to breakfast and refresh themselves after the turn-out.

Late on Wednesday night (October 17th) the reserve ammunition column was warned to be ready early in the morning, as there was every probability of an attack. On Thursday forenoon (October 18th) the French were formed up in the Valley of the Tchernaya, awaiting a foe who came not. About noon, fresh movements of troops were made; and it was reported that large masses of Russians were visible, but the enemy did not show.

On Saturday afternoon, October 20, our Allies treated the Russians to a fine view of the Imperial Guard in the cavalry plain of Balaklava. The day was fine, and ponies were put into requisition, and no end of scarlet jackets, interspersed with the blue frocks of the cavalry, might be seen converging from all points towards the parade-ground. The Grenadiers, Chasseurs, Zouaves, Engineers, and Artillery of the Guard, were drawn up across the plain. General M'Mahon, followed by a numerous staff, to which Sir Colin Campbell and a large number of English officers temporarily attached themselves, minutely inspected them. The Grenadiers looked martial and imposing in their long blue coats and lofty bearskins; the Chasseurs smart and active in their excellent and service-like costume; the Zouaves, as usual, picturesque and effective. The Chasseurs and Zouaves excited the admiration of our officers. They were then probably the most perfect soldiers in the world--I do not mean in respect to fighting merely, but as regards military qualities and dress, equipment, powers of marching and endurance--everything, in short, that constitutes perfection in a soldier.

[Sidenote: CHANGES AND FAREWELLS.]

The Russians meantime continued firing at the town, week after week, with little reply. They fired principally at Sebastopol Proper, but now and then they dropped a shot or shell into the Karabelnaia, and sometimes took the flagstaff on the Malakoff for their mark. Occasionally, some artillery officer, as if suddenly exasperated, jumped up in a fury, and ordered half a dozen mortars to be fired at once. It is difficult to understand why the Allies spared the place, unless it were that we expected them to walk away, and leave us their forts in good condition, which was expecting rather too much. Outside the town the French set hard at work levelling siege works, filling up trenches, &c., though why they took that trouble it was hard to say, unless they contemplated the probability that they, in their turn, might be besieged by the Russians.

In the space comprised between the lines where our batteries once stood and the harbour, the ground was literally paved with shot sunk in the earth: there were ditches and trenches in which they lay thick as apples in a basket. They might be seen of every size, from the great thirteen-inch shell, and 68-pounder, down to the little fellows of pleasant vinous appellation, very nasty to meet passing through the air. Fragments of shell macadamized the roads--jagged, rusty bits of iron, infinitely various in size and form. One thought, how many a stout fellow received his quietus from those rugged splinters. Then one came upon ill-treated cannon, some trunnionless, others with muzzles knocked off, some burst in pieces, and others bearing indentations as from the hammer of Cyclops. You walked up into the Redan or into the Malakoff, marvelled at the dimensions of those famous works, and felt surprised rather at their having ever become ours than at their having so long resisted the utmost efforts of English and French. They were indeed a medley of earthworks, stone, heaps of shot, broken shell, and damaged guns, everything rugged and battered--a work of giants reduced to chaos. And then the gloomy, fetid bomb-proofs, in which for so long a time the stubborn Russians lurked, worse than most dungeons.

Early in November it became known that Sir William J. Codrington would succeed Sir James Simpson in command of the army, with the local rank of General, and that Sir Richard Airey, Quartermaster-General, would be replaced either by Colonel Wetherall or Colonel Herbert.

General Codrington announced his elevation in the following Order:--

"HEAD-QUARTERS, SEBASTOPOL, _November 12_.

"I have assumed the command of the army in obedience to Her Majesty's orders. It is with a feeling of pride and with a feeling of confidence in the support which I know will be heartily given, to any officer honoured with such a commission.

"The armies of France and Sardinia are united with us on this ground. We know their gallantry well, for we have seen it; we know their friendship, for we have profited by it; we have shared difficulties, dangers and successes--the groundwork of mutual esteem; and all will feel it our pleasure, as well as our duty, to carry on that kindly intercourse which is due to the intimate alliance of the nations themselves. Our army will always preserve its high character in the field. The sobriety, the good conduct, and the discipline which it is our duty to maintain, are the best sureties of future success, and I trust to the efforts and assistance of all ranks in thus keeping the army to be an instrument of honour, of power, and of credit to England.

"W. J. CODRINGTON, "General Commander of the Forces."

General Simpson's farewell appeared the night before, and was as follows:--

"General Sir James Simpson announces to the army that the Queen has been graciously pleased to permit him to resign the command of this army, and to appoint General Sir William Codrington, K.C.B., to be his successor.

"On resigning his command, the General desires to express to the troops the high sense he entertains of the admirable conduct of the officers and men of this army during the time he has had the honour to serve with them. In taking leave of them, he tenders his best thanks to all ranks, and offers his earnest wishes for their success and honour in all the future operations of this noble army.

"General Sir William Codrington will be pleased to assume the command of the army to-morrow, the 11th instant.

"By order, "H. W. BARNARD, Chief of the Staff."

[Sidenote: THE NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.]

The public dissatisfaction caused by the second failure of the English army to take the Redan fell heavily on the aged veteran, who had in the earlier part of his career done service to the State, and gained a high character for gallantry, skill, and ability. No doubt, with an English army only to lead, Sir James Simpson would have acted with vigour, but he was paralyzed by the action of the French. He was ignorant of their language, slow and cautious, and it is no wonder that, where Lord Raglan failed, General Simpson did not meet with success. The courage and activity General Codrington displayed at Alma, at Inkerman, and in command of the Light Division during the trying winter of 1854-5, seemed to have justified his rapid promotion, and although he was in actual charge of the operations of an army on the day of the 8th of September, he was regarded as an administrative rather than a judicial officer, and was rewarded as signally because he failed as he could have been had he succeeded. A French officer said to me, "If General Codrington had taken the Redan, what more could you have done for him than make him General, and give him the command of the army? But he did not take it, and he is made General and Commander-in-Chief!" There was no opportunity of testing the ability of General Codrington as a commander during the subsequent part of the campaign, but he managed, by his despatches, to lower himself in the estimation of the public, although it is certain that a part of his success and elevation was due to his skill in private correspondence.

Sir W. Codrington came out from England on the 23rd of February, 1854, with the rank of Colonel in the Coldstream Guards. He entered the army as an Ensign and Lieutenant on the 22nd of February, 1821; became Lieutenant in April, 1823; Captain in July, 1826; Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel on the 9th of November, 1846; and Major-General on the 20th June, 1854. He commanded a Brigade of the Light Division throughout the early portion of the campaign, and succeeded to the command of that Division on the retirement of Sir George Brown. Possessed of a strong constitution, a spare vigorous frame, quiet in manner, energetic in action, vigilant, and painstaking, Sir William Codrington acquired a high reputation throughout the war, and was often spoken of as the coming man--_the General_, who was at last to arise out of the _débris_ of old-fogeyism, red-tapery, staffery and Horse-Guardism, of the British army; but the Redan dammed the current which had set so long and so quietly in his favour, because it was supposed that he did not exhibit all the qualities attributed to him in an eminent degree by the army, and his failure produced all the backwater, eddies, and whirlpools usually formed on such occasions. Sir W. Codrington was possibly struggling with the internal conviction that the attack had become hopeless, and consequently felt some hesitation in sacrificing more soldiers when he perceived the failure of our assaults and the confusion of the regiments swarming on the face of the salient; in that supreme hour he did not display that extreme coolness, resource, self-possession and energy which every one had from his antecedents at Alma and Inkerman, and in the trenches, attributed to him. The revulsion of popular feeling either in a nation or an army, is often unjust in proportion to its violence, and there were very many who thought "it would be only fair to give Codrington another chance." Sir W. Codrington received the local rank of Lieutenant-General in Turkey on the 30th July, 1855. Sir Colin Campbell had been gazetted to the same rank on the 23rd January in the same year. The only officers with the army senior to Sir W. Codrington were Lord Rokeby and Lieutenant-General Barnard, Chief of the Staff. The others had all gone home, or were preparing to leave the field in possession of the new General.

Although too active and able a soldier to be neglected in a war like this, it is possible that Sir W. Codrington would not have had a chance of obtaining his distinguished position but for a piece of good fortune. On the 20th of June, 1854, certain promotions took place, more particularly among colonels of the Guards, and among them was that of Colonel Codrington to be a Major-General. Of course the effect of such a promotion would have been to remove him from his regiment and take him home; but the Major-General was most anxious for active service. By the time the _Gazette_ was promulgated the expedition to the Crimea was spoken of, and Major-General Codrington tried hard to evade the necessity of returning home, which to many was by no means disagreeable, if we may judge from the alacrity with which they availed themselves of it. He was lucky enough to succeed in his object, and thus got an opportunity of entering on the career which in a very short period led him to such great honours and to so proud a position. The Acting Quartermaster-General had just died, and Brigadier-General Airey, who commanded a brigade of the Light Division, was selected as his successor. The brigade thus left vacant was given to Major-General Codrington, whose anxiety for active service led him to leave no stone unturned in the search for it; and I well remember that, being then with the Light Division, I heard some expressions of dissatisfaction because the "lucky Guardsman" obtained the command. Only a very short time, however, elapsed before officers and men discovered that he was one of the best soldiers in the army, and his reputation extended beyond the limits of his brigade to every regiment in the field. The Light Division hailed his accession to the command on the second and final retirement of Sir George Brown with the liveliest satisfaction, for he had won the confidence of the men by coolness and unexaggerated intrepidity in the field, and had gained the affection of the officers by his amenity and kind manners.

Although no one regretted that General Simpson had ceased to be Commander-in-Chief of this army, all felt sorrow for the circumstances under which the veteran resigned his command. His simplicity of manners and singleness of mind never failed to conciliate the regard, if not the respect and admiration, of those around him; but he failed in determination and firmness in a matter of vital importance to our army when opposed to a sterner will, greater vehemence, and force of character. Such an error in judgment, or rather such weakness, was especially culpable in the Commander-in-Chief of an army situated as our own has been. The General was a victim to writing, like his predecessor. He was more of a clerk than a General. Now, is it the Horse-Guards which enforces all this scrivenery? If the army cannot be commanded without all these forms and returns, let us have, in future, a writing General, and a fighting General. It certainly was not despatch-writing which consumed our Generals' time hitherto, for those documents were always brief enough.

[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNCILS.]

Again we were suffering from the evils of divided councils, Allied armies, and telegraphic instructions. Sir Edmund Lyons was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet; but one foot he could not move, for he was tied by the leg, just as he was when he in vain opposed the famous flank march on Balaklava, and advocated a rush at the town ere the enemy could have recovered from the effects of their dismay. We were necessitated to act in concert with our Allies, and the rule seemed to be that neither France nor England should act independently of the other, but that they might act as they pleased respecting the Sardinians or the Turks. There is always a want of decision and energy in Allied councils, and even Marlborough and Eugene had to regret that no two men can take precisely the same view of all the parts and accidents of any single matter. General Simpson ever evinced the utmost readiness to accede to Marshal Pelissier's suggestions, or to any proposition made by either generals or admirals of character and experience, so that no obstacle to any energetic steps arose from him, but if he wished to march against the enemy he could not have done so without the co-operation of Marshal Pelissier. It was doubtful if the French much out-numbered us in strength, but they certainly did generally preponderate, and at this time take the lead in military operations, either by land or sea.

A siege is at all times rather demoralizing and destructive to discipline. The siege of Sebastopol was so to a considerable degree, because to the ordinary influences of such operations the effects of a winter's campaign were superadded. Most of the old soldiers were used up; and the bulk of our regiments contained an undue proportion of recruits. To see a body of our soldiers coming back from the roads in the evening--to mark their careless air--listen to their loud voices in the ranks as they tramped through the dust--one would scarcely think them capable of being turned out as a clean, smart regiment at ten minutes' notice. They were often clad on such occasions in coarse and rather dirty fatigue-suits of grey linen, and, but for their forage-caps with the regimental numbers, they would not look, to any lounger in Hyde Park or the Phoenix, like those British soldiers, all kempt and compact as they usually are presented to the public gaze at home, whom they are accustomed to see. The officers, too, often mere boys or young lads not long from England, rode or marched along with the men, without adding much to their martial aspect. The latter either sang a quick march-song in chorus, or whistled some air to keep the step. Such high spirits were pleasant to see, but occasionally the march became too noisy and riotous to suit the notions of a strict disciplinarian; old soldiers did not commit these irregularities, but young recruits who had seen little of military life, and who scarcely knew what drill was, were apt to exceed the bounds of decorum and military rule when they found themselves free from parades, and field-days, and inspections, and put to work on the roads like labourers.

The extraordinary fineness of the weather all this time afforded a daily reproach to the inactivity of our armies. Within one day of the first anniversary of that terrible 14th of November, which will never be forgotten by those who spent it on the plateau of Sebastopol, the air was quite calm. From the time the expedition returned from Kinburn not one drop of rain fell, and each day was cloudless, sunny, and almost too warm. The mornings and nights, however, began to warn us that winter was impending. It is certainly to be regretted that the Admirals could not have undertaken their expedition against Kaffa, for the only ostensible obstacle to the enterprise was the weather, and our experience and traditions of the year before certainly suggested extreme caution ere we ventured upon sending a flotilla, filled with soldiers, on such an awful coast, even for the very short passage to Theodosia.