O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
All the earth was sick and famished;
Hungry was the air around them,
Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!
"The bad weather commenced about November the 10th, and has continued ever since. A winter campaign is under no circumstances child's play; but here, where the troops had no cantonments to take shelter in, where large bodies were collected in one spot, and where the want of sufficient fuel soon made itself felt, it told with the greatest severity upon the health, not of the British alone, but of the French and Turkish troops.... To the severity of the winter the whole army can bear ample testimony. The troops have felt it in all its intensity; and when it is considered that they have been under canvas from ten to twelve months—that they had no other shelter from the sun in summer, and no other protection from wet and snow, cold and tempestuous winds, such as have scarcely been known even in this climate, in winter—and that they passed from a life of total inactivity, already assailed by deadly disease, to one of the greatest possible exertion—it cannot be a matter of surprise that a fearful sickness has prevailed throughout their ranks, and that the men still suffer from it."—Lord Raglan to Lord Panmure, February, 1855.
After the battle of Inkerman, the allied armies turned all their energies to the siege of Sebastopol, the principal city of the Crimea. You will read some day about this memorable siege, one of the most famous in history, and about the prodigies of valor performed by both besiegers and besieged; but I can only touch briefly on those aspects of it which are connected with my subject.
The winter of 1854-5 was, as Lord Raglan says, one of unexampled severity, even in that land of bitter winters. On November 14th a terrible hurricane swept the country, bringing death and ruin to Russians and allies alike. In Sebastopol itself trees were torn up by the roots, buildings unroofed, and much damage done; in the camps of the besiegers things were even worse. Tents were torn in shreds and swept away like dead leaves; not only the soldiers' tents, but the great hospital marquees were destroyed, and the sick and wounded left exposed to bitter blast and freezing sleet. The trenches were flooded; no fires could be lit, and therefore no food cooked; and when the snowstorm came which followed the tempest, many a brave fellow lay down famished and exhausted, and the white blanket covered his last sleep.
In the harbor even more ruin was wrought, for the ships were dashed about like broken toys that a wilful child flings hither and thither. The Prince, which had just arrived loaded with clothing, medicines, stores of every description, went down with all her precious freight; the Resolute was lost, too, the principal ammunition ship of the army; and other vessels loaded with hay for the horses, a supply which would have fed them for twenty days.
This dreadful calamity was followed by day after day of what the soldiers called "Inkerman weather," with heavy mists and low drizzling clouds; then came bitter, killing frost, then snow, thaw, sleet, frost again, and so round and round in a cruel circle; and through every variation of weather the soldier's bed was the earth, now deep in snow, now bare and hard as iron, now thick with nauseous mud. All day long the soldiers toiled in the trenches with pick and spade, often under fire, always on the alert; others on night duty, "five nights out of six, a large proportion of them constantly under fire."
Is it to be wondered at that plague and cholera broke out in the camp of the besiegers, and that a steady stream of poor wretches came creeping up the hill at Scutari?
The Lady-in-Chief was ready for them. Thanks to the Times fund and other subscriptions, she now had ample provision for many days. Moreover, by this winter time her influence so dominated the hospital that not only was there no opposition to her wishes, but everyone flew to carry them out. The rough orderlies, who had growled and sworn at the notion of a woman coming to order them about, were now her slaves. Her unvarying courtesy, her sweet and heavenly kindness, woke in many a rugged breast feelings of which it had never dreamed; and every man who worked for her was for the time at least a knight and a gentleman. It was bitter, hard work; she spared them no more than she spared herself; but they labored as no rules of the service had ever made them work. Through it all, not one of them, orderlies or common soldiers, ever failed her "in obedience, thoughtful attention, and considerate delicacy." "Never," she herself says, "came from any of them one word or one look which a gentleman would not have used; and while paying this humble tribute to humble courtesy, the tears come into my eyes as I think how amidst scenes of loathsome disease and death there arose above it all the innate dignity, gentleness and chivalry of the men (for never surely was chivalry so strikingly exemplified), shining in the midst of what must be considered as the lowest sinks of human misery, and preventing instinctively the use of one expression which could distress a gentlewoman."