The British Expedition to the Crimea

by Sir William Howard Russell

"General Sir William Codrington will be pleased to assume the command of the army to-morrow, the 11th instant.

"By order,
"H. W. Barnard, Chief of the Staff."

THE NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

The public dissatisfaction caused by the second failure of the English army to take the Redan fell heavily on the aged veteran, who had in the earlier part of his career done service to the State, and gained a high character for gallantry, skill, and ability. No doubt, with an English army only to lead, Sir James Simpson would have acted with vigour, but he was paralyzed by the action of the French. He was ignorant of their language, slow and cautious, and it is no wonder that, where Lord Raglan failed, General Simpson did not meet with success. The courage and activity General Codrington displayed at Alma, at Inkerman, and in command of the Light Division during the trying winter of 1854-5, seemed to have justified his rapid promotion, and although he was in actual charge of the operations of an army on the day of the 8th of September, he was regarded as an administrative rather than a judicial officer, and was rewarded as signally because he failed as he could have been had he succeeded. A French officer said to me, "If General Codrington had taken the Redan, what more could you have done for him than make him General, and give him the command of the army? But he did not take it, and he is made General and Commander-in-Chief!" There was no opportunity of testing the ability of General Codrington as a commander during the subsequent part of the campaign, but he managed, by his despatches, to lower himself in the estimation of the public, although it is certain that a part of his success and elevation was due to his skill in private correspondence.

Sir W. Codrington came out from England on the 23rd of February, 1854, with the rank of Colonel in the Coldstream Guards. He entered the army as an Ensign and Lieutenant on the 22nd of February, 1821; became Lieutenant in April, 1823; Captain in July, 1826; Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel on the 9th of November, 1846; and Major-General on the 20th June, 1854. He commanded a Brigade of the Light Division throughout the early portion of the campaign, and succeeded to the command of that Division on the retirement of Sir George Brown. Possessed of a strong constitution, a spare vigorous frame, quiet in manner, energetic in action, vigilant, and painstaking, Sir William Codrington acquired a high reputation throughout the war, and was often spoken of as the coming man—the General, who was at last to arise out of the débris of old-fogeyism, red-tapery, staffery and Horse-Guardism, of the British army; but the Redan dammed the current which had set so long and so quietly in his favour, because it was supposed that he did not exhibit all the qualities attributed to him in an eminent degree by the army, and his failure produced all the backwater, eddies, and whirlpools usually formed on such occasions. Sir W. Codrington was possibly struggling with the internal conviction that the attack had become hopeless, and consequently felt some hesitation in sacrificing more soldiers when he perceived the failure of our assaults and the confusion of the regiments swarming on the face of the salient; in that supreme hour he did not display that extreme coolness, resource, self-possession and energy which every one had from his antecedents at Alma and Inkerman, and in the trenches, attributed to him. The revulsion of popular feeling either in a nation or an army, is often unjust in proportion to its violence, and there were very many who thought "it would be only fair to give Codrington another chance." Sir W. Codrington received the local rank of Lieutenant-General in Turkey on the 30th July, 1855. Sir Colin Campbell had been gazetted to the same rank on the 23rd January in the same year. The only officers with the army senior to Sir W. Codrington were Lord Rokeby and Lieutenant-General Barnard, Chief of the Staff. The others had all gone home, or were preparing to leave the field in possession of the new General.

Although too active and able a soldier to be neglected in a war like this, it is possible that Sir W. Codrington would not have had a chance of obtaining his distinguished position but for a piece of good fortune. On the 20th of June, 1854, certain promotions took place, more particularly among colonels of the Guards, and among them was that of Colonel Codrington to be a Major-General. Of course the effect of such a promotion would have been to remove him from his regiment and take him home; but the Major-General was most anxious for active service. By the time the Gazette was promulgated the expedition to the Crimea was spoken of, and Major-General Codrington tried hard to evade the necessity of returning home, which to many was by no means disagreeable, if we may judge from the alacrity with which they availed themselves of it. He was lucky enough to succeed in his object, and thus got an opportunity of entering on the career which in a very short period led him to such great honours and to so proud a position. The Acting Quartermaster-General had just died, and Brigadier-General Airey, who commanded a brigade of the Light Division, was selected as his successor. The brigade thus left vacant was given to Major-General Codrington, whose anxiety for active service led him to leave no stone unturned in the search for it; and I well remember that, being then with the Light Division, I heard some expressions of dissatisfaction because the "lucky Guardsman" obtained the command. Only a very short time, however, elapsed before officers and men discovered that he was one of the best soldiers in the army, and his reputation extended beyond the limits of his brigade to every regiment in the field. The Light Division hailed his accession to the command on the second and final retirement of Sir George Brown with the liveliest satisfaction, for he had won the confidence of the men by coolness and unexaggerated intrepidity in the field, and had gained the affection of the officers by his amenity and kind manners.

Although no one regretted that General Simpson had ceased to be Commander-in-Chief of this army, all felt sorrow for the circumstances under which the veteran resigned his command. His simplicity of manners and singleness of mind never failed to conciliate the regard, if not the respect and admiration, of those around him; but he failed in determination and firmness in a matter of vital importance to our army when opposed to a sterner will, greater vehemence, and force of character. Such an error in judgment, or rather such weakness, was especially culpable in the Commander-in-Chief of an army situated as our own has been. The General was a victim to writing, like his predecessor. He was more of a clerk than a General. Now, is it the Horse-Guards which enforces all this scrivenery? If the army cannot be commanded without all these forms and returns, let us have, in future, a writing General, and a fighting General. It certainly was not despatch-writing which consumed our Generals' time hitherto, for those documents were always brief enough.

DIVIDED COUNCILS.

Again we were suffering from the evils of divided councils, Allied armies, and telegraphic instructions. Sir Edmund Lyons was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet; but one foot he could not move, for he was tied by the leg, just as he was when he in vain opposed the famous flank march on Balaklava, and advocated a rush at the town ere the enemy could have recovered from the effects of their dismay. We were necessitated to act in concert with our Allies, and the rule seemed to be that neither France nor England should act independently of the other, but that they might act as they pleased respecting the Sardinians or the Turks. There is always a want of decision and energy in Allied councils, and even Marlborough and Eugene had to regret that no two men can take precisely the same view of all the parts and accidents of any single matter. General Simpson ever evinced the utmost readiness to accede to Marshal Pelissier's suggestions, or to any proposition made by either generals or admirals of character and experience, so that no obstacle to any energetic steps arose from him, but if he wished to march against the enemy he could not have done so without the co-operation of Marshal Pelissier. It was doubtful if the French much out-numbered us in strength, but they certainly did generally preponderate, and at this time take the lead in military operations, either by land or sea.

A siege is at all times rather demoralizing and destructive to discipline. The siege of Sebastopol was so to a considerable degree, because to the ordinary influences of such operations the effects of a winter's campaign were superadded. Most of the old soldiers were used up; and the bulk of our regiments contained an undue proportion of recruits. To see a body of our soldiers coming back from the roads in the evening—to mark their careless air—listen to their loud voices in the ranks as they tramped through the dust—one would scarcely think them capable of being turned out as a clean, smart regiment at ten minutes' notice. They were often clad on such occasions in coarse and rather dirty fatigue-suits of grey linen, and, but for their forage-caps with the regimental numbers, they would not look, to any lounger in Hyde Park or the Phoenix, like those British soldiers, all kempt and compact as they usually are presented to the public gaze at home, whom they are accustomed to see. The officers, too, often mere boys or young lads not long from England, rode or marched along with the men, without adding much to their martial aspect. The latter either sang a quick march-song in chorus, or whistled some air to keep the step. Such high spirits were pleasant to see, but occasionally the march became too noisy and riotous to suit the notions of a strict disciplinarian; old soldiers did not commit these irregularities, but young recruits who had seen little of military life, and who scarcely knew what drill was, were apt to exceed the bounds of decorum and military rule when they found themselves free from parades, and field-days, and inspections, and put to work on the roads like labourers.