[252] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol II., p. 38.
[253] “Exclusive of officers who have come back by reason of wounds, sickness, or promotion to the depôt battalions, only thirty-three out of an army of 52,000 men have come home on private affairs.”—Letter of Prince Albert to the Prince of Prussia. Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXIX.
[254] See a curious letter on this subject from Colonel Hope, V.C., in the Daily Chronicle of 14th September, 1886, and a note appended to it from the pen of the Editor of that newspaper.
[255] Simpson was bitterly blamed for not asking Campbell’s Division of Guards and Highlanders, who were picked and seasoned soldiers, to assault in the first instance. Campbell, however, though he often exacted cruel sacrifices from his men, was parsimonious of blood, and it was said in the camp that he refused to attack till he had time to make the necessary preparations. Then he observed, grimly, he would not “attack, but ‘tak’ he Redan.” Codrington seems to have imagined that there was no need for all this caution. He attacked, but did not take, the fortress; in fact, to take it on his plan was an utter impossibility.
[256] That was partly due to the fact that our trenches were 200 yards from the Redan. This space was enfiladed by a murderous fire when crossed by the stormers. The French, 20,000 strong, were only 20 yards from the Malakoff. Simpson’s excuse for hastening the attack instead of pushing the trenches closer was that every day the French were losing 200 and we 60 men in the trenches.
[257] The Duke of Newcastle, who had gone to the seat of war to examine affairs on the spot, in a letter to Clarendon, says that Simpson seemed “never to be doing but always mooning. He has no plan, no opinion, no hope but from the chapter of accidents.” He thought Pélissier just as incompetent. “I believe,” he adds, “Pélissier’s officers have no confidence in him, and I know his soldiers dislike him.” Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXVII. The Sardinian De La Marmora was the only one of the Allied Commanders-in-Chief who had any marked ability.
[258] So the Russians afterwards said. This plan was proposed by Sir E. Lyons, but Pélissier laughed scornfully in his face when he suggested it, and poor Simpson, as usual, concurred with Pélissier.
[259] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXVIII.
[260] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 322.
[261] The excuse for the Franco-Austrian intrigue was that the rejection of the terms by Russia bound Austria to join France and England in going on with the war. But of course Austria had taken pains to find out what terms Russia would accept before she gave her pledge, so that she never had the remotest intention of fighting on our side. As for the terms they were, as Mr. Greville puts it, but a second edition of the proposals which we had rejected at the Vienna Conference. There was, says Mr. Greville, this difference: “while on the last occasion the Emperor knocked under to us and reluctantly agreed to go on with the war, he is now determined to go on with it no longer, and requires that we should defer to his wishes.”—Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. I., p. 297.