“‘Besides these materials, it would be necessary to have, say, as much bituminous coal, and a couple of thousand barrels of gas or other tar, for the purpose of masking fortifications to be attacked, or others that flank the assailing positions.
“‘A quantity of dry firewood, chips, shavings, straw, hay or other such combustible materials, would also be requisite quickly to kindle the fires, which ought to be kept in readiness for the first favourable and steady breeze.
“‘Dundonald
“‘7th August, 1855’
“‘Note.—The objects to be accomplished being specially stated the responsibility of their accomplishment ought to rest on those who direct their execution.
“‘Suppose that the Malakoff and Redan are the objects to be assailed it might be judicious merely to obscure the Redan (by the smoke of coal and tar kindled in ‘The Quarries’), so that it could not annoy the Mamelon, where the sulphur fire would be placed to expel the garrison from the Malakoff, which ought to have all the cannon that can be turned towards its ramparts employed in overthrowing its undefended ramparts.
“‘There is no doubt but that the fumes will envelop all the defenses from the Malakoff to the Barracks, and even to the line of battleship, the Twelve Apostles, at anchor in the harbour.
“‘The two outer batteries, on each side of the Port, ought to be smoked, sulphured, and blown down by explosion vessels, and their destruction completed by a few ships of war anchored under cover of the smoke.’
“That was Lord Dundonald’s plan in 1855, improperly published in 1908, and by the Germans, who thus learnt it, ruthlessly put into practise in 1915.
“Lord Dundonald’s memoranda, together with further elucidatory notes, were submitted by the English government of that day to a committee and subsequently to another committee in which Lord Playfair took leading part. These committees, with Lord Dundonald’s plans fully and in detail before them, both reported that the plans were perfectly feasible; that the effects expected from them would undoubtedly be produced; but that those effects were so horrible that no honorable combatant could use the means required to produce them. The committee therefore recommended that the scheme should not be adopted; that Lord Dundonald’s account of it should be destroyed. How the records were obtained and preserved by those who so improperly published them in 1908 we do not know. Presumably they were found among Lord Panmure’s papers. Admiral Lord Dundonald himself was certainly no party to their publication.”