The causes which led to this failure of the Russian arms were, first, the shining valour and noble resolution of the Turkish soldiers, and, next, the arrival of the Allies at Varna, the operations of their fleets in the Black Sea, and the new position taken up by Austria. For Austria, eager for the evacuation of the Principalities, had, on the 14th of June, while yet the issue of the siege of Silistria was uncertain, made a separate treaty with the Porte, whereby the Emperor engaged "to exhaust all the means of negotiation, and all other means, to obtain the evacuation of the Principalities" by the foreign army which occupied them. In other words, Austria undertook to occupy the Principalities herself—an engagement which, if the Russians did not withdraw, rendered it incumbent on Austria to use force for their expulsion. It is easy to see that, unless the Czar was ready to incur the hazards of a war with Austria, in addition to a war with the Allies, this pressure put upon him, coming at the back of a defeat before Silistria, and the gathering strength of Britain and France ashore and afloat, would compel him to yield up the material guarantee which he had so recklessly seized. And it did so. But now we must glance at the incidents which preceded it in the Black Sea, and on the shores of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont.
On the Black Sea the combined fleet had ridden triumphant. In a cruise of twenty days they met no foe, but picked up prizes in considerable numbers. One incident had occurred which added to the wrath and mortification of the Czar. The Furious was sent to Odessa to bring away the British Consul. As her boat, bearing a flag of truce, was returning to the ship, she was fired upon; and no satisfactory explanation being given, Admirals Dundas and Hamelin appeared off Odessa on the 21st of April with a combined squadron and demanded redress. General Osten-Sacken having refused to grant any redress, the admirals sent in a steam squadron the next morning and bombarded the war-port, but tried to spare the town. In twelve hours they had blown up a powder-magazine, destroyed, by shot and shell, a goodly number of ships, and many buildings containing stores. The loss of the Allies was three killed and twelve wounded. After inflicting this chastisement for a breach of the usages of war, the squadron cruised off Sebastopol, but met no enemy; and on the 5th of May Sir Edmund Lyons with a squadron steamed away for the Circassian coast, where his presence caused the Russians to abandon all their forts, except those of Anapa and Sujak Kaleh, lying at the northern end of the coast, near the straits of Kertch. The Circassians took immediate advantage of this, and confined the garrisons of the two forts within the walls; while the Turks occupied Redut Kaleh and Sukhum Kaleh, in Mingrelia and Abasia.
During the spring the troops of the Allies gradually assembled in the dominions of the Sultan; and in the month of March, and for many subsequent months, the blue waters of the Mediterranean were ploughed by the fleet of transports, under steam and sail, all bound eastward; while the straits which divide Europe from Asia were almost as crowded as the Thames. The pressing question at the beginning of May was to organise the military machine; to put it into fighting and marching order; to provide more for its future than its present wants; to lay up stores of provisions and depôts of ammunition; and, above all, to gather together the means of setting the military machine in motion when it was completed. This was no easy task. The French, by habit, were better prepared for war than the British, but the former found it difficult to give legs to their transport corps. As to the latter, they had been hurried into action almost totally unprepared. They had neither a military train, nor even the nucleus of such a corps; they had no effective medical staff; they had an inexperienced and undermanned commissariat. They had magnificent regiments, individually perfect; but they had no army. Everything had to be done on the spot; and being done in a hurry, and by men not accustomed to the work, it was imperfectly done. The British had not been a week in Turkey before there was an outcry for transport. Lord Raglan had a splendid collection of soldiers; but he could not have marched them fifty miles.
Marshal St. Arnaud was, to judge from his letters, in a state of feverish impatience for action; but, according to the statements of Kinglake, he was also in a disturbed as well as ambitious frame of mind. It is said that he tried first to obtain the command of the Turkish army, next to effect an arrangement which would have given him a control over that of Britain. These vagaries of a vain and ambitious man were frustrated by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and Lord Raglan, and they did not meet with the approval of the Emperor. But events pressed. The Russians were certain not to wait until the Allies had devised some plan. It became imperative to see the facts a little more clearly than they could be seen at Constantinople; and, in the middle of May, Lord Raglan and the marshal went to Varna, to meet the Turkish general, and hear from Omar Pasha his view of the situation, and his conception of its requirements. Omar Pasha told them he had 45,000 in Shumla, and with these he could defend it. He had 18,000 in Silistria; but these, he believed, could not hold the place longer than six weeks, that is, to the end of June. He had about 20,000 at Kalafat. The rest of his forces were scattered in detachments. He naturally suggested Varna as the point of concentration for the Allies. The two generals agreed to bring up their troops to Varna.
Owing to St. Arnaud's abrupt changes of plan, the movement on Varna, begun on the 29th of May, was not completed until the 4th of July. The camps were pitched in beautiful places. The white tents crowned a green knoll, or extended along a sandy plateau, and looked out upon broad sweeps of turf broken by groups of fine trees, and overlooking a shining lake skirted by meadow lands, and backed by the rugged outlines of the Balkans. But the peculiarity of the country was the absence of inhabitants. Except those in the service of the commissariat, drivers of mule carts and bullock drays, and now and then a wandering Bulgarian, none were to be seen. Fear had driven them to desert their homes; and it was not one of the least disadvantages attending the armies of the Allies that they had to operate in a country practically deserted. The want of transport, felt even at Scutari and Gallipoli, became a positive evil in Bulgaria. The porter and ale sent out for the consumption of the troops could not be carried inland for want of carts and horses; the water was bad, and the men drank the red wine of the country, and, in consequence, fell victims to disease. Diarrhœa, dysentery, cholera, made their appearance in the camps, and the graveyards began to fill. Then the air was polluted with horrid exhalations, and in addition the men pined for action. So that, although the sites of the camps looked healthy, bad management, imperfect food and drink, intemperance, a burning sun by day and chilling dews by night, and ennui, soon reduced the physical and moral stamina of the troops.
Though the object of the campaign had been gained when the Russians recrossed the Pruth, the allied Powers, active agents in the war, had resolved on a mode of reaching Russia. They had determined to carry the war into the Crimea, and capture Sebastopol. This was no sudden resolve. It grew naturally, and, one may say, inevitably out of the war itself. The object of the war was, first, the defence of the Sultan's territory; next, the placing of the territory in security. But there were other means essential to complete success. For a quarter of a century all military observers had seen the military importance of the Crimea. This peninsula, united to the mainland only by the Isthmus of Perekop, and the sandy ledge of Arabat, was the seat of enormous power. At its southern extremity, within a few hours' sail of Constantinople, stood Sebastopol, upon an inlet of the sea forming an excellent harbour. The Russian Government had spent millions in constructing here a series of fortresses impregnable to a maritime attack, and within the harbour and on the shores of a creek running southward they had built vast docks, overlooked by extensive barracks for sailors and soldiers. Long before the phrase was used in Parliament or by statesmen, soldiers had come to regard Sebastopol as a "standing menace" to the Turkish empire; and at the very outbreak of war, the Duke of Newcastle, British War Minister, had directed the attention of Lord Raglan to this point. But the military men, knowing how precarious are operations based on the sea, were doubtful of success. Very little trustworthy information respecting the obstacles in the way, and the numerical strength of the Russian army in the Crimea, could be obtained. Lord Raglan could get none. The French had none. The British Cabinet, looking to all the circumstances, seeing that the allied fleets had entire control of the Black Sea, and that any reinforcements sent to the Crimea must march thither by Perekop, sure that Austrian battalions would cover the road to Constantinople, pressed upon their ally the project of an invasion of the Crimea. The nation went entirely with them in this. Being responsible, they naturally hesitated longer than those who were not responsible; but it is not true to say, as Mr. Kinglake says, either that the Times brought about the decision, or that the Government merely obeyed the popular voice. Those who were responsible for the expedition were the Cabinet, the Parliament, the people—in short, the British nation. And the nation was right. For unless Sebastopol and the naval power of Russia in the Euxine were destroyed, a treaty of peace would have been a mere truce devoid of any sound security either to Turkey or to Europe. It is really puerile to contend that Russia could determine the war by relinquishing the Principalities. The wrongful act which led her there was only a symbol, a manifestation of the existence of a state of things injurious to Europe. When she retired, that state of things was not changed; Russia was still the domineering Power, and still held in her hands the means of disquieting, threatening, nay, of attacking Turkey. No doubt the object of the war enlarged with its progress; but that, within certain limits, is common to all wars. Having gone to the vast expense of sending armies and fleets to Turkey, the Allies would have been culpable had they neglected to obtain the amplest possible security for the independence and integrity of Turkey.
Towards the end of June the British Cabinet were engaged in considering the important project submitted by the Duke of Newcastle. After some deliberation, all parties assented, and the terms of the despatch to Lord Raglan were finally agreed to on the 28th. In this despatch Lord Raglan was instructed "to concert measures for the siege of Sebastopol, unless," so the terms ran, "with the information in your possession, but at present unknown in this country, you should be decidedly of opinion that it could not be undertaken with a reasonable prospect of success.... If, upon mature reflection, you should consider that the united strength of the two armies is insufficient for this undertaking, you are not to be precluded from the exercise of the discretion originally vested in you, though her Majesty's Government will learn with regret that an attack from which such important consequences are anticipated must be any longer delayed." He was further informed that, as no safe and honourable peace could be obtained until the fortress was reduced, and the fleet taken or destroyed, nothing but "insuperable impediments" was to prevent an early decision. These are what have been called the "stringent instructions" directing the invasion of the Crimea. They were supported by the voice of the nation and its Parliament. Before the Cabinet had taken its decision, before it was known that the siege of Silistria had been raised, Lord Lyndhurst in his place, on the 19th of June, declared that "in no event, except that of extreme necessity, ought we to make peace without previously destroying the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and laying prostrate the fortifications by which it is defended." And in answer, Lord Clarendon, with more reticence of language, spoke to the same effect.
The attitude of France was not so precise. Concurring with the British Cabinet in its views respecting the necessarily enlarged objects of the war, the slow and cautious character of the Emperor led him to acquiesce in the proposed invasion of the Crimea rather than urge it forward. His general in Turkey was instructed to support the decision Lord Raglan might come to, and not by any means to plead for the invasion; but if the council of war decided in favour of the British project, then, of course, Marshal St. Arnaud was to give his amplest co-operation. Practically, therefore, the decision rested with Lord Raglan; for although Admiral Dundas was not under his orders, yet it was not to be supposed that he could or would stand out against the wishes of his Government. Lord Raglan did not delay his decision. The despatch of the War Minister reached him on the 16th of July; on the 18th he called a council of war; on the 19th he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle that he accepted the task imposed upon him; but accepted it, as he did not fail to express, "more in deference to the views of the British Government, and to the known acquiescence of the Emperor Louis Napoleon in those views," than in deference to his own opinion: for he frankly stated that neither he nor the admiral had been able to obtain any information upon which an opinion could be founded. Indeed, there were not in the council any ready supporters of the project except Admirals Lyons and Bruat. Dundas and Hamelin were both opposed to it; but, as we have seen, St. Arnaud and his admirals were directed to acquiesce. Dundas was not likely to do more than express an opinion; and hence the council took its tone from Lord Raglan, and proceeded to consider how and when the enterprise should be carried out. After two months' delay caused partly by the sickness of the troops, partly by the necessity for preparation, the allied troops sailed. They would never have started had not Roberts, a master in the navy, devised means for the transport of the cavalry and artillery, by buying up the boats of the country and building rafts upon them. Yet this man was allowed to die unhonoured and unpromoted.
The expedition reached the Crimea on the 13th of September, and the armies lay four days in position off the points of debarkation. Each day there was work enough to be done in completing the operation of landing. On the 15th the wind blew heavily on shore, and sent a rough surf dashing over the shingle and sand. But, later in the day, the wind went down a little, and the British were enabled to put on shore more guns and the greater part of the cavalry; and the French landed more guns and their 4th division. Lord Raglan also went on shore, and established his headquarters on a rising ground, and rode round the outposts. The men and officers slept once more in the open air. They made beds of fern and lavender; but, although the rain did not descend in steady streams, a heavy dew saturated beds, and blankets, and kits. On the 16th the tents were landed, in the hope that transport for them could be found in the country. It was not found, and all the tents were taken on shipboard before the army marched.
And why could not transport be found? When the Allies first landed, the country people, simple farmers and shepherds, quiet and inoffensive, came into the camp; and brought fowls, and eggs, and sheep, and were glad to sell them. They also were willing to let out their carts and bullocks. According to the British system, these men were well treated and well paid. Wellington, even in France, could always secure a well-supplied market, and even transport, by treating the people civilly and paying them well. So it would have been here. But the French acted on a different system. It is allowed in all countries that stores belonging to the Government of your enemy are good prize. You may, by the strict rules of war, take private property if you need it. Yet, as a general rule, it is prudent to respect private property; or, if you take it, to pay for it. The French took both alike. On going his rounds on the evening of the 16th Lord Raglan learnt that a body of Zouaves had entered and plundered the village of Baigaili, within the British lines, and had even abused the villagers, men and women. Of course a speedy end was put to such brutalities. At the same time Captain de Moleyns, with a squadron of Spahis, went out of the French camp, and returned driving before him flocks of sheep and cattle, a few camels, a number of arabas, or country carts, and a group of natives, the captives of his spearmen. The effect of these predatory forays was to reduce to a minimum the supplies of all kinds, animate and inanimate, to be derived from the country. While these Zouaves and Spahis were ravaging the villages, it was remarked that the Turks, who had landed on the 15th and 16th, "the much-abused Turks, remained quietly in their well-ordered camp, living contentedly on the slender rations supplied from their fleet." Nevertheless, the Commissary-General, by aid of military force and money, ultimately managed to get together about 350 country waggons, with bullocks and drivers, for the supply of the British section of the invading army.