The British Expedition to the CrimeaRussell, William Howard, Sir
History
The British Expedition to the Crimea
Russell, William Howard, Sir
Crimean War, 1853-1856
In the middle of January there were severe and sudden alterations of
temperature. Men were frozen in their tents, and several soldiers on
duty in the trenches were removed to hospital with severe frost-bites,
but the frost enabled the men to get up considerable supplies of warm
clothing, though the means at our disposal did not permit of the wood
for huts being sent to the front. When a path had once been trodden
through the snow, men and horses could get along much more easily than
if they had to wade through mud or across a country in a state of
semi-solution. Many thousands of coats, lined with fur, long boots,
gloves, mits, and socks were served out, but there were regimental
hospitals where they had only one blanket to lie upon.
Our army consisted of officers and regiments almost new to this
campaign. The generation of six months before had passed away; generals,
brigadiers, colonels, captains, and men, the well-known faces of
Gallipoli, of Bulari, of Scutari, of Varna, of Aladyn, of Devno, of
Monastir--ay, even of the bivouac of Bouljanak, had changed; and there
was scarcely one of the regiments once so familiar to me which I could
then recognise save by its well-known number. What a harvest Death had
reaped, and yet how many more were ripe for the sickle of the Great
Farmer! It was sad to meet an old acquaintance, for all one's
reminiscences were of noble hearts now cold for ever, and of friend
after friend departed. And then came--"Poor fellow! he might have been
saved, if----"
[Sidenote: A NONDESCRIPT ARMY.]
Excepting Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, and Sir R. England, not one of our
generals remained of those who went out originally; the changes among
our brigadiers and colonels were almost as great. Sir George Brown, the
Duke of Cambridge, the Earl of Cardigan, Sir George Cathcart, Sir De
Lacy Evans, General Tylden, General Strangways, Brigadier Bentinck,
Brigadier Goldie, Brigadier Buller, Brigadier Adams, Brigadier Torrens,
Brigadier Cator, Lord de Ros--had all been removed from the army by
wounds, by sickness, or by death. And so it was with the men themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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