New-York Daily Tribune.
Nr. 4349, 28. Marz 1855

Some weeks ago, The London Times reprinted an article of ours on the maladministration of the British Army, and the mismanagement of the Crimean campaign—thus acknowledging the justice of our remarks. We have now the greater

satisfaction of seeing their truth confirmed by the results of the Parliamentary
inquiry itself. The statements of the witnesses examined on the first four days
completely bear out everything we have said with regard to the military blunders,
dating from Gallipoli down to Balaklava, to the systematic failure of all the
departments, and to the sacrifice of the transports in the storm of Nov. 14. As the

subject is one of great interest, we will, for the information of our readers, sum up
the evidence given before the Committee under these three heads.

Captain Wrottesley, of the Royal Engineers, whose duty it was to assist Mr.
Calvert, the English Consul at Gallipoli, in the preparation of quarters for the
army, tells us that great inconvenience was felt there already for want of conveyanees, both for the transport of tents and of engineering tools from Gallipoli; and
that there, too, the men were already badly supplied with rations. General Sir De
Lacy Evans, on his arrival at Malta, which was the dépôt, ascertained that no
purchases of mules had been thought of. At Gallipoli, he found fault with the
absence of the same arrangements as complained of by the previous witness. As

they went on to Scutari, and as the troops began to accumulate, difficulties of all
manner accumulated in the same ratio, both with regard to the feeding of the
troops and horses, and to the means of transport. "The men had, frequently, to
wait four or five hours for their rations. There was only one small store of forage
for several thousand horses. During the whole of this time very little was done

toward increasing the number of transport-carriages. As the country, at that
time, was full of provisions, there would have been no difficulty in obtaining
plentiful supplies." At Scutari it was manifest that the Treasury-regulations were
calculated to ruin the army, regulations directly originating with Lord Aberdeen.
On the whole, the evidence of Gen. Evans is remarkable for tracing the conduct

of the army in Bulgaria home to the Government. "At Varna," he says, "very
little preparation was made for the sick, because the war was commenced, with

an impression at home, that there would be no sickness or wounds at all. The war
was commenced under the delusion that matters would be settled without an
explosion of gunpowder, and that there was no necessity for any magazines at all.

It was true that the Commissariat was under the Commander-in-Chief, but nevertheless it was closely connected also with the Treasury, in the writing of letters
to whom the clerks of the Commissariat had been much employed. The Treasury
and their officers must have had the impression that laying out the money required was extravagance. Arrangements were not made to enable them to take
the field at once. When the Russians had crossed the Danube, Omer Pasha applied for assistance, and the answer was that the army had not the means of
transport, which ought to have been provided for long before." On this point the
evidence of Captain Wrottesley is even more complete. He says: "Omer Pasha
promised to send us 500 bullock-wagons, and they were sent to us, but the
Commissariat Department, when they got them, did not know what to do with
them, for there was no organization among—the bullocks?—no, among the
Commissariat." To return to General Evans: "The Government," says he, "was
constantly waiting for notes and protocols from Vienna, and no great exertions
were made to put the army in a condition to move. The Russians were carrying
on the siege of Silistria, and still the army was not in readiness to move, and still
the Government waiting for notes. For delay ofthis kind, the Commissariat was
not responsible, but the Government." Evans further tells us what were the consequences of those delays, not to the Turks, but to the British army: "About a
month before the army started, the cholera broke out. The general state of health
ofthe men had been good, but their illness had arisen from depression, from their
having been so long inactive. The weather was very hot, and the men did not
know what they were really to do."

We also learn from Captain Wrottesley's evidence, that, "the siege train was
never landed at Varna; it was sent out without any horses to draw it. It arrived at
Varna in the middle of summer, in July." On the general condition ofthe army in
Bulgaria, the same witness remarks: "No person who had not seen Bulgaria,
could imagine the utterly destitute state of it, and many of the French officers
said they had never seen anything like it, even in Algeria. The Government which
sends an army there must be supposed to know the wants ofthe country."

We see, thus, that during the period, including the landing at Gallipoli and the
bivouac at Varna, the defective state of the British army-organization was chiefly
aggravated by the conduct of the Treasury, or rather by the Government at home
and its policy. A peculiar instance of the good will of that Government toward
the army is given by the evidence of General Bentinck, who, let us observe,
appears otherwise to have been most anxious to screen the Government. "The
tools supplied to the pioneers from London were bad; they were too few, and of
inferior quality. The same tools had been tried at Chobham and found inefficient;
yet the tools supplied to the pioneers in the Crimea were of the same kind."

We have often stated before that it was principally the overworking of the
troops in the trenches, and otherwise, which caused the ruin of the Crimean

army. Gen. Evans entirely confirms that view, defeating at the same time the
insidious attempt to throw the blame on the French, by the statement that the
English force on the day of landing really amounted to 23,000, while the French
had only 20,000. Everybody knows that the causes of the overworking of the
British army were simply the insufficient strength of the whole invading force,
and the scanty supply of British reénforcements, owing to Lord Palmerston's
refusal to embody the militia at an earlier time. With regard to the other great
cause of the ruin of the British army, namely, the absence of a road from Balaklava to the camp, Gen. Evans states that 1,000 men could have made that road
in ten days, but that they could not be spared.

The spontaneous mischief produced by the organization of the departments is
borne witness to in every stage of the inquiry, surpassing the very worst of our
predictions and previous statements. Notwithstanding their full command of the
sea, the British army absolutely wanted everything—food, fuel, clothing, shelter,

medicaments, and forage. Before we enter on these matters in detail, we will
quote the statement of Gen. Evans concerning Mr. Filder, the chief of the Commissariat. "Filder never consulted with him as to the wants of his division; it was
his duty to do so; he wanted him to do it, but Filder declined." Of the same
Mr. Filder Mr. Layard says: "Mr. Filder was very unwilling to listen to anything

that clashed with his own views." Let us remark that Mr. Filder, too, is an old
peninsular reminiscence.

Now, for some details of the Commissariat management. The cavalry might be
expected to have been well off, as it was encamped only one mile from Balaklava.
Geo. Dundas, M.P., who was at Balaklava from the 17th to the 29th of December, reports that he "found the cavalry-horses standing at their pickets with no
rugs on, totally unprotected from the weather, and apparently they had very little
to eat; many of them had died quite recently, as the ground in the vicinity was
covered with dead bodies. Many must have died on the preceding night. Almost
every other horse was on the ground. Some of them had died, some he saw dying;

and he was led to suppose, not only from the attenuated state of the horses, that
they were in want of forage, but he observed that many of them had their manes
and tails eaten off. Nevertheless, a considerable quantity of bran in bags was lying
on the shore of Balaklava Harbor, which continued there till he left. There was
also a quantity of hay floating about in the harbor, and washed up on the beach.

He saw the bran; he could not assign any reason why the authorities in charge
should not have looked to it."

While the horses were starving at a mile from a harbor obstructed with bran
and hay, we find the men shivering with cold on a beach strewn with planks of
wrecked ships, which they were forbidden from gathering; rotten with scorbutic

diseases, with vegetables decaying on board ships in Balaklava; and dying with
famine on the coasts of a sea whose Asiatic shores abound with live cattle; or
with sickness, under tents, for want of transport to the hospitals of Scutari, while
men-of-war, with capacities for transporting a thousand lay idle at anchor. Thus
Mr. Layard states that he told the Government, as far back as a twelvemonth,

that they might have ample supplies of fresh meat from the Asiatic coast; but his
warning was not listened to, although several times repeated since. As to vegetables, Dr. Vaun, surgeon of the Harbinger steamer, reports to the Committee
that the "Harbinger was, on her second voyage, dispatched in haste from Balaklava to Constantinople for a cargo of vegetables. On returning to Balaklava
they reported their arrival to Capt. Christie, and he reported it to the Commissariat. They were a fortnight discharging their cargo, which was assigned to the
Commissariat. He never heard that the vegetables actually got up to the camp.
Capt. Christie would not unload the vegetables until ordered by Mr. Filder, and
the commander of the Harbinger could not do it till ordered by Capt. Christie.
The vegetables were at last landed on the shore, and a sentry placed over them.
Some were taken away, but nearly the whole cargo rotted on the beach. There
was bread spoiling on the beach also." While those stores were rotting away on
the beach, the larger houses of Balaklava were occupied by single men connected
with headquarters.

We pass over the chapter of the treatment of the sick on board the transports
and at Scutari, our readers being sufficiently acquainted with these facts, and
proceed to the history of the storm of Nov. 14. We have on this point the evidence of Mr. Stephen Owen, the surviving officer of the ship Resolute, from
which he saved eight men. He arrived at Balaklava in the Resolute about the
beginning of October. His captain would not, at first, anchor off Balaklava, as
the water was not sufficiently deep, the anchorage not good, the coast ironbound, and the winter before them. They got into the harbor on the morning
after their arrival, and were there until Oct. 27, having received several orders
from Capt. Christie to go out of the harbor before their cargo—consisting of
gunpowder, Minié rifles, and cartridges—had been delivered. It appears from the
further statements of Mr. Owen that the whole disaster arose merely from the
orders given by Capt. Christie to ships to anchor outside the harbor. Mr. Owen
states literally that "Capt. Lewis, the commander of the Resolute, remonstrated
with Capt. Christie as to the position of his ship, on the ground that, considering
the nature of the coast and the winter coming on, if a gale should come, it would
be sure to drive us on shore. He asked permission to go inside the harbor until he
should go off on the next voyage. It rested with Capt. Christie whether ships
should lie outside of the harbor. On the remonstrance of Capt. Lewis no change
took place, and we remained outside the harbor. New remonstrances were made
to Capt. Christie. Cap. Lewis went on board several times for that purpose, and
the day before the gale he wrote to Capt. Christie as to his intentions. He sent his
secretary with his letter, but the answer he received was very unsatisfactory. I
heard Capt. Lewis say to Mr. Stephen: This is too bad.' Mr. Stephen said: ‘T
would put to sea;' to which Capt. Lewis replied: 'If I put to sea, and disobey
orders, I shall be liable for the loss of the ship.’ There had been a southerly wind
for three or four days. Ifthe gale continued, Capt. Lewis considered that his ship
would be exposed to considerable danger. There were fifteen or sixteen vessels
outside the harbor, anchored in a similar manner; ten of these vessels were lost,

and only twenty-five men out of the whole number were saved. At a rough guess,
except the Prince, which had 130 men, the other ships had between 50 and 60.
Quite as many as 600 men were lost. If all other transports ordered outside had
been in the harbor, there would not have been so much damage in consequence
ofthe gale, as there would have been there not so much room for the ships to ride
against the wind. We were not ordered out of the harbor to make room for other
vessels, because no other vessels went in. The Prince could have entered the
harbor, for there were several fine days when she could have done so. If the
Captain had been ordered to put to sea in the gale, there would not have been so
much danger as in lying off Balaklava. If the vessels had been in harbor, there
would have been no comparison as to the danger and loss of life experienced.
During the twenty seven days we were in the harbor, there was plenty of room in
the quay to have unloaded our cargo, and there would have been no difficulty in
our doing so. There were plenty of houses at Balaklava where they could have
deposited their cargo; there were plenty of places where it could have been put. If
out of each vessel as much had been taken as was wanted for the day, every vessel
would have landed her cargo." Thus, we see that the season, or the dispensation
of Providence, as Mr. Sidney Herbert called it, in his great speech in Parliament,
had nothing to do with the disaster, but that it was all the fault of the officials of
the British Government. It is certainly not much to expect that the people should
hold them to a rigorous account.