Third Division.—Lieut.-gen. Sir Richard England. First Brigade (under the command of Brigadier-general Ryhe).—1st regiment (The Royal regiment, formerly called Royal Scots); 28th regiment (North Gloucester), during the present century this regiment has been Irish; 38th regiment (1st Staffordshire). Second Brigade (under the command of Brigadier-general Sir J. Campbell).—44th regiment (East Essex), during the present century this regiment has been an Irish one; 56th regiment (West Essex); 68th regiment (Durham Light Infantry).
Fourth Division.—Lieut.-gen. Sir George Cathgakt. First Brigade (under the command of the senior Lieut.-col., as Brigadier).—20th regiment (East Devonshire); 21st regiment (Royal North British Fusiliers); 1st battalion Rifle Brigade. Second Brigade (under the command of the senior Lieut.-col., as Brigadier).—63rd regiment (West Suffolk); 46th regiment (South Devonshire): 57th regiment (West Middlesex).
Fifth, or Light Division.—Lieut.-gen. Sir George Brown. First Brigade (under the command of Brigadier-general Goldie).—Royal Rifle Brigade, 2nd battalion; 7th Royal Fusiliers; 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers; 33rd regiment (Duke of Wellington’s own). Second Brigade (under the command of Brigadier-general Buller.)—19th regiment (1st York, North Riding); 77th regiment (East Middlesex; 88th regiment Connaught Rangers).
Cavalry Division.—Lieut.-gen. the Earl of Luoan. First Brigade, Heavy (under the command of Brigadiergen. the Hon. J. Scarlett).—1st (Royal) Dragoons; 2nd (Royal) Dragoons (Scots Greys); 4th Dragoon Guards (Royal Irish); 5th Dragoon Guards (commonly called Green Horse); 6th Dragoons (Inniskillens). Second Brigade, Light (under the command of Major-gen. the Earl of Cardigan).—4th Light Dragoons (Queen’s own); 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars; 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s own); 13th Light Dragoons; 17th Lancers.
It was finally agreed upon between the two Western governments, that England should furnish 30,000 men, and France 70,000. It was then thought that an allied force of 100,000 men in support of a Turkish army equally numerous, would be sufficient to drive the armies of the czar out of the Principalities.
Leaving for a while the din of preparation, and the dispatch of troops, it is necessary to return to the operations of the Turks upon the Danube. It is not suitable to this History to record all the victories gained by the Osmans, it is only necessary to observe, that they were almost uniformly victorious, and fought with dazzling bravery. The grand struggle, however, on the part of the Turks was in the defence of Silistria. Against that place a powerful Russian army, under its ablest artillerists and engineers, was directed. The Turks were few and badly provided, but they were encouraged by the presence of various British officers of the most heroic mould. Among these none was more distinguished than Captain Butler, who perished from a wound received in the defence, while beside the gallant British General Cannon (Behram Pasha), by whom the garrison of Silistria had been reinforced.
There was something mysterious about the policy pursued during the siege of Silistria. The place was driven to the utmost straits, although Omar Pasha was at the head of a large army at Shumla, and the Western allies were at Varna. The latter declared that they were unable to move from want of those campaigning appliances, which a French army has not been usually known to stand in need of either before or since. Omar Pasha said he could not move for want of beasts of burden, and from strategical reasons; although he supplied the allies in Bulgaria with pack animals and 500 arobas, or carts, from Shumla, and no reason could be seen why he did not push on his troops to the relief of the beleaguered and endangered city. At last he sent a portion of his troops forward, and Russia was destined to undergo a signal humiliation. When the troops of Omar Pasha sent to relieve the place advanced for that purpose, the Russians had so completely invested it against the approach of a relieving army that there seemed no hope of accomplishing that object. The Turkish army was not strong enough to fight a pitched battle, and cause the Russians to raise the siege. It was of the last importance that the drooping, wearied, and dispirited garrison should be relieved by fresh men. This exploit was accomplished by the genius and promptitude of one heroic man—General Cannon, bearing the Turkish title of Behram Pasha. He commanded the light division of the Turkish army. He caused letters to be written to the officers of the garrison, laying down a plan by which they were to co-operate with him in entering the city at a certain hour, by a certain point. These letters he managed should fall into the hands of the Russians. They accordingly prepared in great strength to defeat the stratagem they had, as they supposed, so opportunely discovered. The British general made a long detour, and after a night of forced marching he came upon an opposite part of the city, an entrance by which the Russians could not have supposed possible, and to the joy and wonder of the garrison, the best division of the Turkish army, with its best general at the head, marched into the city. From that hour the contest was no longer dubious. The Russians saw that the prize was carried from their grasp. They at last raised the siege, to be pursued by Cannon and other British officers, at the head of their gallant Turks, from victory to victory, until the baffled and beaten Muscovite fled through the Principalities he had so boastingly invaded, and so ruthlessly plundered and oppressed. To General Cannon’s skill and courage the raising of the siege of Silistria, the grand turning-point of the campaign, is to be attributed. The conception of the plan, the peril of the attempt, and the glory of the achievement were all his own.
Contemporaneously with the war on the Danube, operations were conducted in Asia Minor, but no British or French troops were sent there at any period of the war.
During the closing months of 1853, the Russians organized a powerful army to drive the Turks out of Asia, but the Circassians and other tribes of the Caucasus were in arms against Russia, and fought so gallantly and perseveringly, that the troops of the czar were unable to effect anything until late in the summer of 1854. The Turks organized an army for the defence of their Asiatic possessions, and committed it to the command of Jazif Pasha, an utterly incompetent man and bigoted Mohammedan. Under him was another officer, of like character, Selim Pasha, who experienced defeat at the hands of far inferior forces of the enemy. A number of Polish and Hungarian officers, who had fought in the Hungarian revolution of 1848, were sent to assist the Turkish Muchir in forming and disciplining an army. Some of these men became Mohammedans, and obtained substantial rewards and honours; others, refusing to renounce the profession of Christianity, were not allowed to hold real authority, but acted as a species of aides-de-camp of high rank, and counsellors of the pashas. Among the foreign officers of this description was a native of the west of England, named Guyon, a man of rare genius, and as rare bravery. He had taken part in the Hungarian revolution, and as the despotic power of Austria was sacred in the eyes of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador at Constantinople, and all revolutionists, however honourable their cause, were hateful to his lordship, Guyon met with no countenance or support from him. The personal prejudices and predilections of the noble ambassador were always in the ascendant, and often were sufficiently strong to injure the cause of Turkey and the allies. Guyon was, however, raised to the rank of pasha, and got the surname of Kurschid. The native pashas set his advice and authority at defiance, plundered the troops, the people, and the government, and acted more like the allies of Russia than generals or dignitaries of Turkey. Such a state of tilings in the Turkish army encouraged the Russians, and they advanced, notwithstanding the embarrassments created by the intrepid raids of the mountaineers of the Caucasus, under the enterprising Schamyl and his lieutenants. The Polish officers in the Turkish service were jealous of the superior skill and chivalrous heroism of Guy on. Indeed, throughout the war in Asia, the English officers who acted there were opposed with envenomed rancour by the Poles who happened to serve in the same cause with them, and one or two Germanized-Hungarians joined in this anti-British feeling. But for Guyon the Turkish army would have been annihilated before the autumn of 1854, and yet the mendacious Muchir and his Feriks laid the blame of every defeat upon the European officers, but especially upon the best and the bravest of them all—the dauntless and noble-hearted Guyon.
During August, 1854, the Russians advanced, with the design of attacking Erzerum. The Turkish pashas were too much intent upon plundering every one within the range of their power to offer any effectual resistance. Hungarian, German, and Polish officers, especially the two latter, were equally zealous in quarrelling with one another. Guyon alone, among the officers of superior rank in the Turkish service, displayed activity, intelligence, foresight, and spirit; but he was thwarted by the other Europeans, and insulted and defied by the Turkish Muchir, Feriks, and Beys. Again and again he pointed out the sure road to victory, and the fact that the Turks were superior in numbers and resources to their foes: his counsel was despised, delays were interposed, when no alternative but the ostensible adoption of his plans remained, and the result was the almost total dispersion of the Turkish armies, and the imminent danger of Erzerum, and even Kars, falling into the hands of the enemy without a struggle. This state of things continued until Lieut.-colonel (afterwards Major-general Sir Fen wick Williams, Bart.) Williams appeared upon the scene as the commissioner of her Britannic majesty. In that character he was invested with an authority poor Guyon could not claim, and without which the latter officer struggled in vain. Colonel Williams, like Guyon, was an object of the insatiable jealousy of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who gave him no support, and, in spite of the entreaties—and, at last, of the commands—of the English minister for foreign affairs, thwarted Colonel Williams in every conceivable way. Supported, however, by the decision, perseverance, and intelligence of Lord Clarendon, the English commissioner held his ground in spite of the coldness, and even opposition, of the ambassador, and was enabled to re-organize the dispersed armies of the Porte, to place Kars and Erzerum in conditions of defence, and to throw such obstructions in the way of the Russians, then flushed with success, as retarded their advance, until the fall of Sebastopol decided virtually the fortunes of the war.