Crimean texts
(Continued from 26 October 1868)
It is now nearly seven years since his readers closed the fourth volume of Mr Kinglake’s History. They will be sure to remember, however, that he then left them in a state of expectancy, and that they were at the end of the day on which occurred the cavalry actions on the plains of Balaclava, for if the interest his narrative had revived in the events and controversies of that memorable 25th of October, 1854, was keen, every one knew that in the tremendous struggle over Inkerman, the angry glare of which was almost reflected on his closing pages, there would be still ampler scope for the display of his extraordinary brilliance of style, and larger occasion for exhibiting the exceeding ingenuity with which his readers’ judgment could be influenced by the writer’s personal likings and antipathies. Those who have been waiting so long can now devour the long-expected volume. It devotes 547 stately pages, including contents and appendix, to the Battle of Inkerman; the affair of the 26th of October, known as “Little Inkerman,” being dismissed in 29 pages. No doubt the labour of producing such a work was very great, for the method pursued by the writer was peculiar. For many years he has been inviting the personal confidences of those engaged in the action, and addressing queries, sometimes like the written interrogatories used in legal investigations, to those whom he considered likely to throw light on the events of that one day. His readers are informed that in the year after the fourth volume was published Mr Kinglake went to the Crimea and made a study of the ground on which the battle was fought. In addition to Lord Raglan’s private letters, he has had access to his correspondence with members of the Government and others, has been able to consult State papers, has been in communication with the officers of the British and of the Russian Armies, and has been aided, further, by the various publications which have been given to the world from Paris and St Petersburg to elucidate the dark places in Crimean history. He has in the present volume carried us just ten days further on our way than we were when we parted from him in 1868. There is still to be written the account of the storm of November 14 and of its results — of the woeful winter — of the warfare in the trenches — of the slow absorption of the soul and body of the British Army in the dreary waste of mud and misery whence it seemed at one time as though they never could emerge. There is yet to be given the account of the dealings of the chiefs with their troops — of the relations of the authority which wielded the sword of England in the field with the Government at home — of the voice of diplomacy at work again till it was stilled by the roar of the cannon — of the renewed bombardments, and of the disastrous assault of the 18th of June, 1855; and there is also the explanation to be afforded, which we have a right to expect from Mr Kinglake, of the causes which led to the British being thrust off the ground of Inkerman, to which they established so glorious a title on the 5th of November, and to their being so placed that had 50,000 more men come out from England after that day they would have found themselves flanked right and left by the French, and would have been obliged to work on the narrow front before the Left and Right attacks of their original position. We do not mean to anticipate Mr Kinglake’s explanation, far less to challenge his ingenuity. But he has made the personal ascendancy of Lord Raglan over the French councils and chiefs a fixed article of his readers’ faith, and it can scarcely be now accepted without flat apostasy that the master mind and iron will which coerced them so often was on a vital point forced to yield to the demands of those hitherto held in subjugation. With all this work before him the historian must make greater haste than he has hitherto done since he put forth his first volume so many years ago with the announcement that, having been for a long time in the attitude of a man who was ascertaining the truth, he thought the time had now come for him to declare it. The personal interest of the survivors of the Crimean War in this narrative cannot be expected to reach the public outside which has but scant recollection of those days of intense anxiety, but Mr Kinglake can win over a great mass of readers at any time to listen to his story, and it is all the more a weighty obligation upon him to purge his pages of any taint of colouring matter, and to banish from the recital of those great deeds the influence of unworthy jealousies which may affect the opinions of future generations, and even pervert the national judgment. It is a tribute to Mr Kinglake’s power that he can arouse attention to questions more than 20 years old, and he may be proud of the feat he has accomplished in doing so, for Crimean history written on such a scale as his by any other hand would certainly be treated as so much Blue-bookery, and would never call a dozen paper-knives into operation. There is no example we know of in history, ancient or modern, of such elaboration of detail; but we feel bound to say that in the present volume, prepared as we were for it by the accounts of the Heavy and Light Cavalry Charges, it is carried to excess. Since the last volume of this History was issued there has been a war which must have led to results personally most agreeable to Mr Kinglake. Men have since heard of such combats as those of Woerth, Vionville, Gravelette, and Sedan. What library-shelf could hold the history of the campaign of 1870-71, written on such a scale as this? And what would become of us if, 20 years hence, we were to have all the passions, prejudices, scandals, hates, and national animosities of past days aroused by the intermittent appearance of encyclopædical volumes which dealt with the doughty deeds of Müller and Schultz, of Jean Goujou and Pierre Lapin, in every one of these battles, sedulously sought out and worked into continuous episodes? But it would be still worse if there were a settled purpose on the part of the writer to make the facts fit into the framework of theories, and of such a purpose there is some evidence, we think, in this volume, as in those which preceded it.
Before we deal with Mr Kinglake’s story of Inkerman, let us offer a few observations of the state of affairs in our camp after the 25th of October. The Russians, having received considerable reinforcements, were enabled to make a demonstration against a line of detached earthworks in front of Balaclava on the 25th of October, which was so far successful that they secured all but one, with the guns mounted in them, and obtaining control of a road which led from the plains up to the plateau on which the Allies were encamped. The result of Liprandi’s operations made Lord Raglan uneasy about Balaclava; but it is pretty plain that the English General did not grasp the danger of his position. Liprandi saw on the 25th of October how fast the Allies could descend upon him as he marched with his right flank exposed all along their line, and how formidable were the obstacles presented by the ground itself, and he did not dream of another isolated movement; and Mr Kinglake makes an assertion for which he can adduce no justification — that the Russians directed an attack on the north-east part of the Chersonese to divert attention from Liprandi. But his object is to show that it was right to neglect Inkerman in order to fortify Balaclava. Liprandi was in no danger; he could withdraw either by Tchorgoune or under and up the Mackenzie Ridge if pressed by a superior force. Although foiled in their design against Balaclava itself, the Russians were elated by what they had done, and next day they made a reconnaissance of the British position, which provided information which decided them to use their rapidly arriving supports in one immense effort to seize on the ground we occupied, there intrench themselves, and gather on the plateau in such force as would enable them to drive the Allies into the sea.
As if to give unquestionable proof of the direction in which the Russian mind was striving, the column which marched out of Sebastopol against the Second Division on the 26th of October carried intrenching tools. It came out of Sebastopol by the route followed on the 5th of November by one of the great columns, and debouched on the same ground. Evans, “a veteran well skilled in that part of the warcraft which belongs to the hour of combat,” gave the Russians a reception which they rightly considered good excuse for a hasty retreat, and Mr Kinglake ingeniously contrasts his mode of fighting, which lay in luring on the enemy to come under the fire of his guns, with that which was adopted by his fellow-countryman, Pennefather, a few days later. Had the urgent representations of De Lacy Evans been listened to, or his advice sought, the anxieties wasted on Balaclava would have been directed towards Inkerman. But not a sod was turned — the force on the plateau was lessened that Balaclava might be reinforced, though the approach to the town was defended by formidable intrenchments broken up in formidable batteries manned by sailors and marines, and though Vinoy’s Brigade and Colin Campbell’s force were in guard of the Gorge. But it may be said “Lord Raglan had no men to spare.” He had 6,000 Turks whom he treated so that even his apologist and champion is obliged to compare him to the “owner of a diamond, who mistook it for a worthless pebble.” The labour of 3,000 men between the 26th of October and the 4th of November, well directed, would have enabled the British to turn what was a sanguinary repulse into a crushing rout. Indeed, the consequences might have been greater than that. If any one doubts, let him turn to this book and read what use as made of a miserable pile of stones called the Barrier when the day of battle came.
The Russians were meantime preparing to give us a death-blow. It was to be the coup de grâce to the Allies, and it was necessary to give it at once, because an assault on the Bastion du Mât was imminent, and Todleben believed “the agony” of that work which would have been fatal to the defence of Sebastopol was at hand. The attack on the 5th of November was made with a suddenness which, in spite of warnings and expectation, gave it the character of a surprise. Although all did not go well with their calculations, enough had come off favourably to make the enemy hopeful of ultimate success. On one point however they were in fault. They never took into account the desperate resistance the British would offer to their overwhelming numbers. The impediments to their advance caused by fog and bad roads, their fearful losses, combined with the inferiority of their small arms, contributed with other causes to impede the execution of the first condition of combined action. They were kept at bay and beaten back by the British till the French came to the aid of their allies. Their artillery was also subjected to the superior power of siege guns, and they retired utterly beaten, but not routed, leaving us to mourn over a glorious but barren victory. Now, the whole matter of interest in this is to know how this result was achieved; but there is a very considerable matter to be dealt with first, and that lies in the inquiry whether the British general took precautions to strengthen his position after he had been duly advised of his danger, and that, of course, involves the question if he had the means to do so. As to the first point, there is in this book an immense array of admirably disposed matter, but there is very little information on the other questions.
Let us now recall the general impression — at least, as we believe it to be — as to the Battle of Inkerman. It was created by the information which came from the seat of war at the time. On the evening of November 5 our Correspondent wrote a letter, which appeared in The Times of November 24, in which there is the following passage:—
“The Battle of Inkerman admits of no description. It was a series of dreadful deeds of daring, of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing rallies, of desperate assaults, in glens and valleys, in brushwood glades and remote dells, hidden from all human eyes, and from which the conquerors, Russian or British, issued only to engage fresh foes, till our old supremacy, so rudely assailed, was triumphantly asserted, and the battalions of the Czar gave way before our steady courage and the chivalrous fire of France. No one, however placed, could have witnessed even a small portion of the doings of this eventful day, for the vapour, fog, and drizzling mist obscured the ground where the struggle was waged to such an extent as to render it impossible to see what was going on at the distance of a few yards.”
In Colonel Hamley’s articles in Blackwood, which were published in 1855, under the title of “The Campaign of Sebastopol,” there is the following appreciation of the character of the battle:—
“Few great battles require less military knowledge to render them intelligible than this. The plan of the enemy was, after having succeeded in placing their guns unopposed in the required position, to pour on one particular point of our line, which they knew to be inadequately guarded, a fire which should at once throw the troops assembling for its defence into disorder, and then to press on at the same point with overwhelming masses of infantry. Our position once penetrated, the plains afforded ample space for the deployment of the columns, which might then attack in succession the different corps of the Allied Army scattered on the plateau at intervals too wide for mutual and concerted defence.”
"On our part it was a confused and desperate struggle. Colonels of regiments led on small parties and fought like subalterns, captains like privates. Once engaged, every man was his own General. The enemy was in front, advancing, and must be beaten back. The tide of battle ebbed and flowed, not in wide waves, but in broken tumultuous billows. At one point the enemy might be repulsed, while at a little distance they were making their most determined rush. To stand on the crest and breathe awhile was to our men no rest, but far more trying than the close combat of infantry, where there were human foes with whom to match, and prove strength, skill, and courage, and to call forth the impulses which blind the soldier to death or peril."
Now, what the volume before us undertakes to do is to place in lucid order of time and place all the “peripéties,” as the French would say, of these combats, and out of them to educe one grand conception of the fight. But the human mind cannot grasp so much. It is like trying to form a great picture out of the innumerable battle scenes in the galleries of Versailles. There is, moreover, a general purpose in the book to show that certain popular notions as to the battle are erroneous. Mr Kinglake, for instance, repudiates the notion of a surprise. He effectually disposes of the idea that the Russians fought well or were formidable enemies. Indeed, he makes them ludicrous; and he laughs to scorn the notion that the French behaved well generally, lent substantial assistance to the English, or contributed to the termination of the battle. Then, again, he argues, with more show of reason, that what is called the Sandbag Battery constituted no part of the English position; but he does not at all succeed in demonstrating that it could have been safely abandoned to the Russians.
In the sequel to the Inkerman narrative the marvellous results of the strife between huge Russian masses on one side and “our thin English lines” on the other, are in the main assigned by the writer to the union of four well-known conditions:— 1, The nature of the ground; 2, the mist; 3, the enemy’s habit of fighting in masses; 4, the quality of our officers and men. It will be seen that there is nothing said here of what we may call — 5, the aid of the French at a critical moment; 6, the superiority of our arms; 7, the part played by the siege guns. The analytical remarks which illustrate these four heads have their value, and there is, apropos of the mist, a little anecdote which is put in Mr Kinglake’s own way, of a soldier of the Grenadier Guards who was heard to say as he got a glimpse of the enemy in front, “I’m d—— if there aren’t scores of ’em.” This is said to have been “a delighted estimate of the numbers he might himself perhaps shoot or run through the body,” and there can be no question but that each separate gathering of soldiery went on fighting “its own little battle in happy and advantageous ignorance of the general state of the action.” But this very mist must have had great disadvantages for the attacking force, once they had lost the early benefit of moving out under its cover with comparative impunity, they could not see either the position or the scanty number of their enemy, and they were under the fire of rifles which were as superior to their muskets as the breechloader of the Prussian was to the Austrian rifle in 1866, long before they could discern well with whom they were fighting. Hence there might be inferred some of the hesitations to which Mr Kinglake alludes when the Russians came suddenly in face of our troops. It would be, however, hazardous in the last degree to agree in the conclusion on which the writer dwells with passionate fondness, that columns are frail as compared to lines in the actual shock of battle, or to believe with him that—
“Inkerman carried yet further the experience of what can be dared against masses by small numbers of soldiery, showing plainly enough that a column which has not been defeated in the earlier moments of its agony may still prove helpless and weak when it has a few assailants within it. The examples of this that were afforded by several, as, for instance, by Hugh Clifford, by Burnaby, by Daubeny, have an infinite value for England, because her people are commonly, and perforce obliged to combat few against many.”
Never again will British Infantry move forward to attack or wait to receive it in the thin red line of men standing shoulder to shoulder, and even the remarkable, if not incredible feats, recorded by Mr Kinglake in this volume as the work of a few men who very often “tore away” great columns without loss, were, on his own showing, not done in regular line, but rather in those little knotted lumps which execute what the Prussians call an “anstoss” against an enemy.
* The Invasion of the Crimea: Its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan. By A W Kinglake. Vol. V.— Battle of Inkerman. William Blackwood and Sons. Edinburgh and London. 1875