The British Expedition to the CrimeaRussell, William Howard, Sir
History
The British Expedition to the Crimea
Russell, William Howard, Sir
Crimean War, 1853-1856
a score or two of sturdy Turks worked away at neat little hand-mills
marked _Moulin de Café--Subsistence Militaire_. _No. A._, _Compagnie
B._, &c., and roasting the beans in large rotatory ovens; the place
selected for the operation being a burial-ground, the turbaned
tombstones of which seemed to frown severely on the degenerate posterity
of the Osmanli. In fact, the French appear to have acted uniformly on
the sentiment conveyed in the phrase of one of their officers, in reply
to a remark about the veneration in which the Turks hold the remains of
the dead--"_Mais il faut rectifier tous ces préjuges et barbarismes!_"
The greatest cordiality existed between the chiefs of the armies. Sir
George Brown and some of his staff dined one day with General Canrobert;
another day with General Martimprey; another day the drowsy shores of
the Dardanelles were awakened by the thunders of the French cannon
saluting him as he went on board Admiral Bruat's flagship to accept the
hospitalities of the naval commander; and then on alternate days the
dull old alleys of Gallipoli were brightened up by an apparition of
these officers and their staffs in full uniform, clanking their spurs
and jingling their sabres over the excruciating rocks which form the
pavement as they proceeded on their way to the humble quarters of "Sir
Brown," to sit at return banquets.
The natives preferred the French uniform to ours. In their sight there
can be no more effeminate object than a warrior in a shell jacket, with
closely-shaven chin and lip and cropped whiskers. He looks, in fact,
like one of their dancing troops, and cuts a sorry figure beside a great
Gaul in his blazing red pantaloons and padded frock, epaulettes, beard
_d'Afrique_, and well-twisted moustache. The pashas think much of our
men, but they are not struck with our officers. The French made an
impression quite the reverse. The Turks could see nothing in the men,
except that they thought the Zouaves and Chasseurs Indigènes
dashing-looking fellows; but they considered their officers superior to
ours in all but exact discipline. One day, as a man of the 4th was
standing quietly before the door of the English Consulate, with a horse
belonging to an officer of his regiment, some drunken French soldiers
came reeling up the street; one of them kicked the horse, and caused it
to rear violently; and, not content with doing so, struck it on the
head as he passed. Several French officers witnessed this scene, and one
of them exclaimed, "Why did not you cut the brigand over the head with
your whip when he struck the horse?" The Englishman was not a master of
languages, and did not understand the question. When it was explained to
him, he said with the most sovereign contempt, "Lord forbid I'd touch
sich a poor drunken little baste of a crayture as that!"
[Sidenote: TROUBLES OF THE TURKISH COMMISSION.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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