SAPPERS DESTROYING THE RUSSIAN TRENCHES. (See p. [99].)
But while we lament the defective judgment and blindness of the Peelites, and the utter incapacity to understand the dynamics of the question displayed by the peace-at-any-price party, we are bound to admire and applaud the courage of both. They did their duty bravely—for it is the duty of the chief men of a nation to speak out; and no nation is well served in which the chief men, yielding to menace or succumbing to apathy, withhold their opinions in moments of great trial. The debates on the policy of the war, on the conduct of the war and of the negotiations, ended by rallying a larger support than ever to the Government; for even the leading Tories admitted that the war was so just that the Government ought not to have avoided it if they could, and so necessary that they could not have avoided it if they would, while no less a person than Lord Derby, allowing his judgment to get the better of his party feeling, insisted that it would be humiliation for Britain and France to retire from the contest baffled before Sebastopol.
Nevertheless, when the Government proposed to become a joint guarantee with France for a loan of £5,000,000 to be contracted by Turkey, Mr. Disraeli, who had earlier in the Session cavilled at a loan of £2,000,000 to Sardinia, now, seeing a prospect of obtaining a majority by a surprise, divided the House against the project and was only defeated by a majority of three. Yet the propriety of both measures was manifest. We wanted the aid of 15,000 Sardinian troops, and it was not too much for so small a State to ask us to lend her the means of placing them fairly on the theatre of war. In the same way the war had disordered more deeply the deeply involved finances of Turkey. By giving a guarantee, in conjunction with France, that the interest should be paid to the lenders, we enabled the Sultan to raise the money at smaller cost to the Turkish Treasury, and by so doing we were, of course, aiding her as effectually, in kind but not in degree, as we were by our fleets and armies. But a Turkish loan was a good subject for a hostile division. Mr. Disraeli saw his chance, seized it, and nearly surprised the Ministry. He would have been content to imperil the alliance and the war at the price of a Parliamentary victory.
Mr. Disraeli pursued a similar course, but with a divided party and no chance of success, upon another occasion. Mr. Roebuck, the head and front of the incomplete and abortive Sebastopol inquiry, moved on the 17th of July a vote of censure on all the members of the Aberdeen Cabinet, whose counsels led to what he was pleased to term the disastrous results of the winter campaign in the Crimea. General Peel, as one of the committee, moved the "previous question," on the ground that the inquiry was incomplete, and that the greater part of the sufferings of the army arose in the very nature of the duty which it fell upon them to perform. Mr. Disraeli and the bulk of his supporters made the motion a party question. But the course of the debate was decidedly against them, and they and Mr. Roebuck failed utterly in procuring from the House, either a retrospective censure on a dead Administration, or an endorsement of the Sebastopol Blue Books. The House decided, by 289 to 182, that the question should not even be put from the chair. Thus ended an attempt, first to discover evidence which would bear out the fierce accusations advanced during the winter, and then to base upon the imperfect and conflicting evidence discovered a censure not deserved.
The Government had, since January, 1855, effected considerable changes in the machinery for carrying on the war, chiefly, however, in the concentration of power in the War Department. They had raised the total force of the army to 193,595 men, including 14,950 who formed the Foreign Legion; and they had increased the number of sailors to 70,000. They had embodied fifty militia regiments, some of whom were in the Mediterranean garrisons; and from the whole militia force they had drawn 18,000 recruits for the army. Having found that the expenses of the war were outrunning the estimates of the spring, they increased those estimates, making the total for the whole service of the army, navy, transport, commissariat, and ambulance purposes, £49,537,692, bringing up the total estimated expenditure for the year to more than £88,000,000; to cover which they provided £96,339,000, leaving a large margin for contingencies. Among the ways and means were a loan of £1,600,000, and power to issue £10,000,000 Exchequer bills or bonds. The active navy consisted almost wholly of steamers, and among the supplementary votes of August was one to provide for the cost of a host of steam gunboats to be used, if required, in 1856.
General Pélissier, the new Commander-in-Chief of the French army, was a hardy soldier, who had taken part in many campaigns, and had gained in Algeria a name not only for military ability in the field, but for skill in the cabinet as an administrator. A cloud hung over his reputation for a time, because he had caused a number of obstinate Arabs, who would not surrender, to be suffocated in the caves of Dahra. But when he went to the Crimea, men only faintly remembered this dreadful act, while all recognised the stern energy, sound military judgment, and stout moral courage of the new chief. Henceforth they felt there would be no faltering, no hesitation, no undue deference for opinions formed in Paris, no terror of responsibility. Pélissier brought to his task a will quite as firm as that of the Emperor Napoleon, and a reputation for soldiership higher than that of his Imperial Majesty. He was told to abide as nearly as possible by his instructions; and if he modified them, he was to do so in concert with Lord Raglan. We have already pointed out that these two officers did not differ on the question before them. General Pélissier differed from the Emperor, not from Lord Raglan. He recognised the soundness of the measures recommended over and over again by Sir John Burgoyne; and he resolved to take Sebastopol by capturing the key of the place—the Malakoff. It was more arduous now than it was two months before, because the Russians had been allowed to develop their hardy system of counter-approaches on the Malakoff ridge, and above the Careening Bay, consisting of the Mamelon Redoubt on the former, and what were called the White Works on the latter. These it was essential to capture and hold before the final blow could be levelled at the Malakoff.
It was on the 19th of May that he took command. On the 22nd, three days afterwards, the expedition to Kertch sailed, and on that very night Pélissier began a bloody contest for the possession of the ground about the cemetery to the west of Quarantine Bay. The Russians had seen the advantage which works of more pretension than rifle-pits would give them on this quarter. They, therefore, began to connect the pits with the place by sinking a covered way across the ravine, and by connecting the pits with each other by a gabionade, that is, a parapet made of large baskets filled and then covered with earth. The incipient stages of this design were observed by the French on the 21st of May. General Todleben's object went further than the mere establishment of a series of strong rifle screens. He had in view the construction of a regular battery on the Russian left of the line, which would have poured a raking flanking fire through the principal works of the besiegers. To prevent this, Pélissier ordered General de Salles, now commander of the Siege Corps, to storm and hold the new Russian line.
This line was of very great extent, stretching from flank to flank for nearly three-quarters of a mile along the broken ground. The whole of it was under the fire of the place, and the conformation of the ground between the Cemetery and Sebastopol, a ravine widening towards its mouth, gave the enemy great facilities for bringing up troops to feed the combat. The French general placed upwards of 4,000 men, including two battalions of the Light Infantry of the Guard, under the orders of General Paté. At nine o'clock the signal was given, and, dashing out of the trenches, the two columns fell upon the enemy so impetuously that he was driven out at the first shock. But it so chanced that at this very moment the troops, the battalions destined to furnish and cover the working parties of the enemy, had paraded in front of the place, under the orders of General Chruleff. Therefore the French had no sooner driven off the Russians who held the lines, than these fresh troops, moving rapidly across the ravine, first smote them with a crushing fire, and then coming on with lowered bayonets, engaged in a combat so close, and fierce, and vehement, that the French were overthrown on their right, and forced back into their trenches; while on their left General Brunet sustained with difficulty the forward position he had won. General la Motterouge, who commanded the French right column, was not the man to yield so easily. Re-forming his men, and bringing up his reserves, he flung them once more into the fight. The combat now raged along the whole line. As the French poured in fresh troops, the enemy, resolved to win, brought up eight battalions, our old foes at the Alma, the regiments of Minsk and Uglitz. And thus through the night the battle continued, sometimes dying away into a faint flicker of fire, and then bursting out again with sudden and appalling fury. When the French gained an advantage and pushed the enemy, their sappers in the rear of the confused roar of struggling men began to destroy the Russian lines; and then in the midst of their work, the battle would roll back upon them and sweep over the disputed ground. Just before daybreak the masses on both sides retired under shelter from the cannon of the opposing batteries; but General Brunet kept the line he had won, and turned the face of the rifle-pits and gabions towards the enemy.