With reference to the Crimean war, I may give a curious example of the power of self-deception in the most upright men. The offices of colonial secretary and war minister were, in conformity with usage, united in the hands of the Duke of Newcastle. On the outbreak of war it became necessary to separate them. It evidently lay with the holder to choose which he would keep. The duke elected for the war department, and publicly declared that he did this in compliance with the unanimous desire of his colleagues. And no one contradicted him. We could only 'grin and bear it.' I cannot pretend to know the sentiments of each and every minister on the matter. But I myself, and every one with whom I happened to communicate, were very strongly of an opposite opinion. The duke was well qualified for the colonial seals, for he was a statesman; ill for the war office, as he was no administrator. I believe we all desired that Lord Palmerston should have been war minister. It might have made a difference as to the tolerance of the feeble and incapable administration of our army before Sebastopol. Indeed, I remember hearing Lord Palmerston suggest in cabinet the recall of Sir Richard Airy.
In that crisis one man suffered most unjustly. I mean Sidney Herbert. To some extent, perhaps, his extraordinary and most just popularity led people to refrain from pouring on him those vials of wrath to which his office exposed him in the eyes especially of the uninformed. The duties of his department were really financial. I suppose it to be doubtful whether it was not the duty of the secretary of state's department to deal with the question of supply for the army, leaving to him only the management of the purchasing part. But I conceive it could be subject to no doubt at all that it was the duty of the administrative department of the army on the spot to anticipate and make known their wants for the coming winter. This, if my memory serves me, they wholly failed to do: and, the Duke of Newcastle's staff being in truth very little competent, Herbert strained himself morning, noon, and night to invent wants for the army, and according to his best judgment or conjecture to supply them. So was laden the great steamer which went to the bottom in the harbour of Balaclava. And so came Herbert to be abused for his good deeds.—Autobiographic Note, Sept. 17, 1897.
Mr. Gladstone to Duke of Argyll
Oct. 18, '55.—You have conferred a great obligation on me by putting me into the witness-box, and asking me why I thought last year that we were under an obligation to Lord Palmerston for 'concentrating the attention of the cabinet on the expedition to the Crimea.' Such was then my feeling, entertained so strongly that I even wrote to him for the purpose of giving to it the most direct expression. And such is my feeling still. I think the fall of Sebastopol, viewed in itself and apart from the mode in which it has been brought about, a great benefit to Europe.... This benefit I should have contemplated with high and, so to speak, unmixed satisfaction, were I well assured as to the means by which we had achieved it. But, of course, there is a great difference between a war which I felt, however grievous it was, yet to be just and needful, and a war carried on without any adequate justification; so far as I can to this hour tell, without even any well-defined practical object.... Your letter (if I must now pass from the defensive) seems to me to involve assumptions as to our right to rectify the distribution of political power by bloodshed, which carry it far beyond just bounds. In the hour of success doctrines and policy are applauded, or pass unquestioned even under misgiving, which are very differently handled at a period of disaster, or when a nation comes to feel the embarrassments it has accumulated. The government are certainly giving effect to the public opinion of the day. If that be a justification, they have it: as all governments of England have had, in all wars, at eighteen months from their commencement. Apart from the commanding consideration of our duty as men and Christians, I am not less an objector to the post-April-policy, on the ground of its certain or probable consequences—in respect first and foremost to Turkey; in respect to the proper place and power of France; in respect to the interest which Europe has in keeping her (and us all) within such place and power; in respect to the permanence of our friendly relations with her; and lastly, in respect to the effects of continued war upon the condition of our own people, and the stability of our institutions. But each of these requires an octavo volume. I must add another head: I view with alarm the future use against England of the arguments and accusations we use against Russia.
Dec. 1.—What I find press hardest among the reproaches upon me is this:—'You went to war for limited objects; why did you not take into account the high probability that those objects would be lost sight of in the excitement which war engenders, and that this war, if once begun, would receive an extension far beyond your views and wishes?'
Dec. 3.—I do mean that the reproach I named is the one most nearly just. What the weight due to it is, I forbear finally to judge until I see the conclusion of this tremendous drama. But I quite see enough to be aware that the particular hazard in question ought to have been more sensibly and clearly before me. It may be good logic and good sense, I think, to say:—'I will forego ends that are just, for fear of being driven upon the pursuit of others that are not so.' Whether it is so in a particular case depends very much upon the probable amount of the driving power, and of the resisting force which may be at our command.