The interest excited by the events of the Campaign in the Crimea has not died away. Many years, indeed, must elapse ere the recital of the details of that great struggle, its glories, and its disasters, cease to revive the emotions of joy or grief with which a contemporary generation regarded the sublime efforts of their countrymen. As records on which the future history of the war must be founded, none can be more valuable than letters written from the scene, read by the light documents, such as those which will shortly be made public, can throw upon them.[1] There may be misconception respecting the nature of the motives by which statesmen and leaders of armies are governed, but there can be no mistake as to what they _do_; and, although one cannot always ascertain the reasons which determine their outward conduct, their acts are recorded in historical memoranda not to be disputed or denied. For the first time in modern days the commanders of armies have been compelled to give to the world an exposition of the considerations by which they were actuated during a war, in which much of the sufferings of our troops was imputed to their ignorance, mismanagement, and apathy. They were not obliged to adopt that course by the orders of their superiors, but by the pressure of public opinion; and that pressure became so great that each, as he felt himself subjected to its influence, endeavoured to escape from it by throwing the blame on the shoulders of his colleagues, or on a military scapegoat, known as "the system." As each in self-defence flourished his pen or his tongue against his brother, he made sad rents in the mantle of official responsibility and secrecy. Even in Russia the press, to its own astonishment, was called on to expound the merits of captains and explain grand strategical operations; and the public there, read in the official organs of their Government very much the same kind of matter as our British public in the evidence given before the Chelsea Commissioners. Much of what was hidden has been revealed. We know more than we did; but we never shall know all.