INSTRUCTIONS TO LORD RAGLAN
London, 29th June 1854.
Lord Aberdeen presents his humble duty to your Majesty. The Cabinet assembled yesterday evening at Lord John Russell's, at Richmond, and continued to a very late hour.41
A Draft of Instructions to Lord Raglan had been prepared by the Duke of Newcastle, in which the necessity of a prompt attack upon Sebastopol and the Russian Fleet was strongly urged. The amount of force now assembled at Varna, and in the neighbourhood, appeared to be amply sufficient to justify such an enterprise, with the assistance of the English and French Fleets. But although the expedition to the Crimea was pressed very warmly, and recommended to be undertaken with the least possible delay, the final decision was left to the judgment and discretion of Lord Raglan and Marshal St Arnaud, after they should have communicated with Omar Pasha.
It was also decided to send the reserve force, now in England, of 5,000 men, to join Lord Raglan without delay. This will exhaust the whole disposable force of the country at this time, and renders it impossible to supply British troops for any undertaking in the Baltic. A communication was therefore made yesterday to the French Government to know whether they would be disposed to send 6,000 French troops, to be conveyed in English transports, to the Baltic, in order to join in an attack upon the Aland Islands,42 which appeared to be attended with no great difficulty; although any attempt upon Helsingfors, or Cronstadt, was pronounced by Sir Charles Napier to be hopeless.
Mr Kinglake describes, in an interesting passage, the growth in the public mind of a determination that the Crimea should be invaded, and Sebastopol destroyed. The Emperor Napoleon had suggested the plan at an earlier stage, and the Times newspaper fanned popular enthusiasm in favour of it. The improved outlook in the East warranted the attempt being made, but the plan was not regarded with unqualified approval by the commanders of the allied forces in the East. In the speech, already referred to, of Lord Lyndhurst, the project had been urged upon the Government, and Lord Raglan considered that the despatch now sanctioned by the Cabinet, which is printed in the Invasion of the Crimea, left him no discretion in the matter.
The scheme had previously been considered in all its aspects by the Cabinet, and Mr Kinglake gives an exaggerated importance to the fact that some of the members of the Cabinet gave way to sleep while the long draft of instructions was being read to them at the after-dinner Council at Pembroke Lodge.
Footnote 41: The war now entered upon a new phase. Though the land forces of the Allies had hitherto not come into conflict with the enemy, the Turks under Omar Pasha had been unexpectedly successful in their resistance to the Russians, whom a little later they decisively defeated at Giurgevo. Silistria had been determinedly besieged by the Russians, and its fall was daily expected. Yet, under the leadership of three young Englishmen, Captain Butler and Lieutenants Nasmyth and Ballard, the Russians were beaten off and the siege raised. The schemes of the Czar against Turkey in Europe had miscarried.
Footnote 42: Bomarsund, a fortress on one of these islands, was taken by Sir Charles Napier, aided by a French contingent under General Baraguay d'Hilliers, on the 16th of August; but the high expectations raised as to the success of the operations in the Baltic were not realised.