The shock of Raglan’s death silenced at the time all just criticism on his career. The most that can be said for him is said by Lord Malmesbury in his “Memoirs of an Ex-Minister.” “I knew him well,” he writes, “and cannot recollect a finer character. He was the Duke’s right-hand man through the Peninsular war, and was greatly esteemed by him. Handsome and high-bred in person, and charming in society, he was one of the most popular of its members. He was remarkable for his coolness under fire, and St. Arnaud, in his famous despatch after the battle of the Alma, says of him: ‘Il avait toujours ce même calme qui ne le quitte jamais.’” It is, alas! not given to every man to wield the Arthurian brand Excalibur, and whatever he may have been in the Peninsula under Wellington, in the Crimea, Raglan was almost as incompetent as St. Arnaud, Canrobert, and Menschikoff. His blunders were as follows: (1), According to Sir T. Martin, he approved of the invasion of the Crimea in utter ignorance of the ground, when the campaign was proposed by the French Emperor.[219] (2), He consented to invade the Crimea _after_ he had discovered that it was a mad project, and when the discretionary clause in his instructions from the Duke of Newcastle gave him an opportunity of remonstrating with the Cabinet. (3), He invaded the Crimea without an organised Transport Corps. (4), His blunders at the Alma, Balaclava, and Inkermann have been already noted. (5), Till pressure was put on him by Prince Albert, he concealed the miserable state of the army from the Government. (6), By neglecting to make a road between Balaclava and his camp he brought all the miseries of the winter of ’54-’55 on his troops. (7), By attacking the Redan when he knew quite well it was impossible to capture it, he doomed his troops to useless and avoidable slaughter. No defence has been made for him except on the last two counts of the heavy indictment against him. He did not make a road from Balaclava to the camp, says Mr. Kinglake, because he had not enough men at his disposal. This is an explanation rather than a defence. His first duty as a general was to connect his camp with his base. If he was unable to do that, he ought to have abandoned his position. But is not Mr. Kinglake’s defence just a little absurd, taken in connection with the Homeric episodes of the war? Had anybody enough men to do anything great or valuable in the Crimea? Campbell had not enough men to turn the tide of battle, in our favour at the Alma. But he did it. He had not enough men to save our base at Balaclava--but he saved it. Scarlett and Cardigan had not enough men to break through the Russian columns in “the Valley of Death”--but they broke through them. The Duke of Cambridge had not enough men to hold his ground at Inkermann--but he and his Guards held it, till it was positively soaked and saturated with their blood. Mr. Kinglake’s advocacy, indeed, provokes one to say that scarcity of men never kept Lord Raglan back