BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxvii 



misgivings ; a lucky day may see us carry the MalakofF by storm, as we carried tlie Mamelon ; 

 but if I am to form an opinion from facts as they stand, and regard those facts by the light of 

 the last seven months' experience, my opinion must be unfavourable to our prospects of success. 

 The English army is not commanded. General Simpson does not command it ; each General 

 commands his own division, and squabbles with the next General — all counting upon General 

 Simpson's breaking down, look to the command for themselves. The love of the service, the 

 advancement of the Queen's service, the gaining of the object for which we are striving, are 

 secondary considerations in the minds of nearly all out here. Personal reward, personal 

 advancement, are all that most officers think of. Writing on the 2nd of August, 1855, Lord 

 Arthur is of opinion that the allies would possibly abandon the heights they had occupied, 

 and take up the position which had Balaclava for its right, Kamiesch for its left, and the sea 

 for its rear. It might be that in this position the approaching winter would be passed, and 

 in spring a move would be made to some other part of the Crimea — Eupatoria, KafFa, or Kertch. 

 This would be virtually an admission of our inability to take the south side, and would bring 

 KwSoc to the Russians. But he never supposed that we could not drive the enemy from the 

 south side if we tried in earnest to do so ; he only repeats that we never did try. The 

 operations of the English army were carried on without any given plan, without combination, 

 without concert, without determination, without secrecy. " It seems difficult to believe that a 

 closed work like the Malakoff could stand the shelling and fire we could have brought to 

 bear upon it; but we have not bestowed more fire upon it than upon many other points of 

 a very secondary value to the enemy." What impressed him so forcibly was our constant 

 neglect in availing ourselves of the resources we undoubtedly possessed, frittering them away 

 on most useless experiments. On one occasion 320 shells were fired in the course of the 

 night, " to please an irritable and foolish General of the trenches," the only result gained 

 by us being the killing or maiming of a few score of our men. If the same number of shells that 

 were wasted on this occasion had been thrown into one point of the Malakoff, some sensible 

 harm must have been done to the works. Again, if the whole number of shells expended by 

 us in the siege had been expended during a week's or a fortnight's shelling on the Malakoff 

 works, is it not likely that they would have been rendered untenable 1 xiU through the supe- 

 riority in artillery of the enemy was most marked ; we never approached to an equality with 

 them ; taking the siege day by day, we never opened fire with an adequate power of artillery. 

 And why 1 Because, in the first place, sufficient material and men were not supplied by the 

 home government ; and, secondly, because the authorities on the spot applied the material they 

 had foolishly and improvidently. 



" The past, however, speaks for itself. The plan, if attempted, of abandoning the heights 



