Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil InstitutionsSoyer, Alexis
History
Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions
Soyer, Alexis
Cooking for military personnel; Crimean War, 1853-1856
country, their children--their names to posterity, their fame the
beacon to future generations of immortality.
They breathe no more! Such are the chances of war, of life’s
uncertainty. Man proposes, and the Supreme Being disposes. Instead
of cheerful anecdotes, which a few weeks ago I could have related
of those noble departed, I must here, for the present, cast a
tenebrous veil over such earthly frivolity, and implore Providence
to bestow a better fate upon the still great and noble and brave
army.
With the most profound respect, I have the honour to remain,
Your most obedient servant,
A. SOYER.
P.S. By the next steamer I shall return to the Camp to join the
Staff I have just sent there, and terminate, I trust, with success,
my culinary mission, and then return to the shores of Albion.
_H.M.S.V. “Caradoc,”_ CONSTANTINOPLE, _5th July, 1855_.
MR. EDITOR,--Scarcely has the seal of my late painful communication
had time to set, when the rocky shores of the Black Sea are moaning
and re-echoing the solemn report of the minute-gun, while the
foaming current of the Bosphorus is rapidly carrying to the snowy
white cliffs of Albion the remains of a really great man, Field
Marshal the Lord Raglan. To him, above all, I cannot but feel most
grateful for the success of my undertaking in the Crimea. The last
kind word and smile I received while at the seat of war were from
that noble martyr to his country’s cause.
With the highest consideration, I have the honour to be,
Your most obedient servant,
A. SOYER.
P.S. The great desire of paying the last tribute of respect to the
remains of that noble and brave warrior has delayed for a few days
my departure for the Crimea.
One morning I had a serious discussion with one of my workmen, who
declined to cook any more for the hospitals unless I gave him the same
wages as my head man, Jullien, in whom I placed all my confidence,
having known him for years as an honest, industrious, and well-educated
man. He was much respected by all in the hospital: Lord William Paulet
made much of him, as also did Dr. Cumming, Mr. Robertson,
purveyor-in-chief, and, above all, Miss Nightingale and Mr. Bracebridge,
for his attention to business and polite manners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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