catastrophe. And, in spite of the splendid fighting qualities of our men, the catastrophe must have happened, had it not been for two blunders which the Russians committed. In the first place, Menschikoff, who seems to have been even a stupider person than Raglan or Burgoyne, attacked in massive columns. This so reduced his fighting front that our weak detachments formed in line decimated them with their fire, and when our artillery came into action every shot and every shell also told on them with deadly effect. The Russian sortie from Sebastopol, moreover, was mismanaged. The commander lost his way in the mist, and instead of falling on us, he found himself entangled with the French far away on our left, so that he gave no real aid to the main attack. The Russians lost 12,000 men in this battle, the French lost 1,800, and the British lost 2,600. It was therefore clear that the siege must be raised, or that the Allies must enter on a winter campaign. Up till now the troops had suffered very little hardship; but, alas! when winter set in they were doomed to cruel suffering. A terrific storm on the 14th of November blew [Illustration: VALLEY OF INKERMANN.] down their tents and destroyed twenty-one vessels in Balaclava Bay laden with supplies. It rendered the valley from Balaclava to the camp--a distance of nine miles--almost impassable. Two-thirds of the transport horses died, and there was hardly any forage obtainable for the remainder. Cholera--the germs of which had been carried to the Crimea from Varna--raged in our lines, and those who escaped it fell victims to scurvy, dysentery, or fever. “Between the beginning of November,” writes Mr. Spencer Walpole, “and the end of February, 8,898 British troops perished in hospital. At the last of these dates 13,608 men were still in hospital.”[191] The state of the hospitals was so bad that men died there more quickly than on the field. Part of the ghastly tale of mismanagement had been told by Mr. W. H. Russell, the special correspondent of the _Times_, when Parliament met on the 12th of December, and empowered the Queen to raise a foreign legion and utilise the Militia for foreign service--measures forced on the Ministry by Prince Albert. But soon after it separated the cry of distress from the Crimea grew too loud to be stifled. When it rang through England the people turned on the Government in furious anger, and called them to account for their gross mismanagement of the war. The Duke of Newcastle, being Secretary of State for War, was blamed because he was alleged to be incompetent. Aberdeen was blamed because it was said he was at heart a Russian. The scurrilous charges against Prince Albert were revived, and he was accused of impeding the operations of our army by his treacherous interference. As a matter of fact, these charges were all untrue. Prince Albert, Aberdeen, and Newcastle were the three men who alone had courage to face the situation, when they suddenly discovered